In early 2012, Prince, the legendary tennis brand, filed for bankruptcy protection due to the soft economy globally and over-distribution issues. By August 2012, Authentic Brands Group (ABG) had acquired the Prince brand name, and The Waitt Company, an Omaha Investment house, simultaneously bought select operating assets of Prince and signed a 40-year deal to operate the brand in all areas outside Asia.
Prince restructured under the guidance of Waitt Company and a year later, Prince Global Sports LLC named Mike Ballardie its chief executive officer. Ballardie has been at Prince for 10 years. Before Prince, he was a player and tennis coach, ran the Wilson racquet business in Europe, and operated the JanSport brand internationally.
Prince is launching an entirely new product collection in the final months of 2013. At the U.S. Open, Prince launched new racquets featuring Extreme String Pattern (ESP) Spin technology, two bag collections and three new colours of the number one selling T22 Tennis shoe. The legendary Prince Graphite and TT Response racquets have also been brought back to the line and updated.
Beyond innovation, Prince wants to become a more consumer-driven company and has launched a number of innovative outreach efforts. These included Prince wrapped double-decker buses at the French Open, the opening of its first store ever at Wimbledon Village, and the opening of a pop-up brand experience/showroom on Lexington and 47th streets for the U.S. Open. Ballardie has also been busy rebuilding trust in the brand with stores around the world, but is looking for these consumer awareness efforts to again drive demand from the grassroots level.
“We are focused on sell out and driving consumer demand, not sell in,” according to Ballardie
Ballardie believes Prince has to re-position itself as a brand. ‘In the past, our focus was too heavily skewed towards technology (the O-tech/O3 Technology) and as a result we left some of our consumer audience behind. With the launch of the new non-traditional racquet technology, we are readdressing that issue by re-introducing some of our traditional racquet classics such as the original Prince Graphite and Response. Prince also needs to focus on its core customers, consumers and business channels – pro specialty stores / club shops and Internet channels. We need to ensure that we remain closely connected to tennis consumers and constantly evaluate what they need, building our knowledge and then delivering on those needs through the customers and channels across all key markets. This consumer led, marketing focus is a huge shift in emphasis that will set Prince apart from the crowd. Finally, Prince has been recognized globally as a premium brand, so we want to maintain growth on that perception and reputation which we have lots of good starting points as a company to work with.’
The Waitt partnership is perfect and aimed at supporting Prince as it works to re-establish itself as the leading brand in tennis. Prince is currently going through a realignment of the organization structure to execute the brand vision. We have a wide variety of skill and knowledge at Prince and we are reorganizing to ensure that skill match functional needs. In some areas of the business we are bringing in new skills and new business disciplines such as social media and web design.
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Ballardie is determined to regain lost market shares in racquets. ‘Our new product launches that were on display at Prince NYC during the first week of the US Open showed that Prince has been listening. Prince is bringing back traditional racquet tech into its Fall line through the launch of traditional racquet favourites such as the Prince Graphite and Response as well as a series of Pro racquets for the higher-level players. These new racquets will win back some of the consumers lost along the way. In addition Prince will launch its new ESP (Extreme String Pattern) Collection of racquets (including the Tour, Premier and Warrior models). We are planning for a significant dealer and consumer reaction to our new line when we launch the new products this Fall that it will generate somewhere in the region of $30 million in sales for the brand globally. Prince’s plan is to regain our market share by the end of 2015 and to do that we are focused on direct consumer communication that will support other sell-through initiative and drive sales at a store level.
Prince’s focus will be on the Internet, club and specialty channels and there will be new marketing initiatives coming to the market to drive demand and consumer awareness. Prince is launching a new marketing focus that is heavily skewed towards social media and web, and we are looking at focusing our marketing story that is all about custom-fit and personalization of the product. Over the past year, Prince has seen incredible growth in our consumer fan base on social media and it is because we are providing engaging content and demand for knowledge and wanting to know about the brand and our products. Alongside that, we’ll also be incorporating all of our athlete activation with our top players like David Ferrer, Bob & Mike Bryan, Daniela Hantuchova and John Isner. As a brand, we are always looking for more players to add in personality and performance, but our focus is on the rising star athletes as opposed to looking to sign any players in the top ten as we think we have a good representation at the very top level.
