More Bounce at Spalding

Earlier this year, I wrote a post on Dan Touhey and Spalding's Infusion basketball innovation.  It was a great example of creative minds in a corporate setting having the vision and inspiration to innovate a mature 'commoditized' category.  In our view, 'game-changing' innovation (no pun intended) comes from finding and exploiting the intersections between unmet (and often unspoken) consumer needs, enabling technologies/solutions, and marketplace opportunities.  Success in any one (or even two) of these arenas will seldom result in new product success or lasting competitive advantage.  Spalding understands this and the Infusion demonstrates the concept in action.

It's also great to see that the team at Spalding is not a 'one hit wonder' in the innovation category.  They have just announced the introduction of the "Never-Flat" basketball. According to Spalding, "It's the first-ever ball with proprietary pressure retention technologies guaranteed to hold air up to 10 times longer than traditional basketballs."

Here's an excerpt from their press release...

Spalding’s product innovations, from NEVERFLAT to INFUSION, address two contrasting inflation issues – customization and consistency. With Spalding’s NEVERFLAT basketball, the proprietary pressure retention technology provides a guaranteed bounce consistency for one year with no additional air needed during that period. With INFUSION, consumers can adapt the air pressure to their preferred specifications.

“Our research shows there’s a market for both products but clearly NEVERFLAT is the model of consistency showcasing no change in air pressure whereas INFUSION provides consumers the ability to customize to their comfort level,” stated Dan Touhey, vice president of marketing, Spalding.

According to Spalding, the introduction of INFUSION led to a more than 50 percent increase in basketball sales in the first year while growing the sporting goods category by 12 percent. While Spalding would not disclose sales projections for NEVERFLAT, officials believe the uniqueness and durability of the product as well as consumer benefits will ultimately drive sales similar to INFUSION.

(end of excerpt)

There's another story here as well.  Spalding is demonstrating an excellent ability to find and exploit innovation from external sources.  In fact, the Never-Flat technology was actually developed by a small invention company called Primo Innovations (www.primoinnovations.com), founded by two PhD's from NASA and DuPont.  Here's another link to a Q&A with Primo's founders at SportSpin.com.  As a follow-up, I'll try to get you the story from behind the scenes of how Primo and Spalding came together and made this technology sourcing arrangement work.

So keep an eye on Spalding... and on Primo.  Two companies demonstrating an entrepreneurial approach to making 'open innovation' work in the consumer products marketplace.  I predict we're going to continue to see them both continue to pump up the consumer market with a continuing stream of innovation.