It has gotten favorable reviews from equipment bloggers and golf magazines. No marketing program will work without a good product and PowerBilt appears to have one in the Air Force One DFX driver. Kvinge wants to put PowerBilt clubs in the hands of young players because "what we have found is by the time a kid is finishing up high school he's already made his branding decision and his father usually follows him." "We do a lot of junior programs and I talk to a lot of the child psychologists and they say, 'You are spot on.' Kids want everything fast action, they are into extreme sports. We're not attracting younger players and our number of players keeps declining. "Everybody follows the norm," Kvinge said.
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But those golfers aren't going to give up their TaylorMade or Ping drivers no matter what PowerBilt does and they are aging and leaving the game, anyway.
It's probably not the best way to attract the older, money-spending demographic. "Cub Swanson isn't well known in traditional golf circles but I was shocked at how many people on Facebook have jumped over to follow us from him," Kvinge said. Kvinge said he wants to sign more extreme sports figures and that the company is in the process of developing an extreme fitness program and is heavily invested in junior golf programs. PowerBilt recently signed mixed martial arts athlete Cub Swanson to promote its new Air Force One DFX driver. Kvinge and partner Dennis Wente acquired the PowerBilt name in 2006 and have injected life into the company with some out-of-the-box thinking and a bold approach to attract young consumers. "Our biggest initiative is to get the brand out there again, get our market share up, get our distribution channels up." "I think the biggest problem we've had, I walk through an airport in a PowerBilt shirt and everyone under 45 thinks I work for a tool company," said Ross Kvinge, president of the company. Peek into the golf bags of the top 300 players in the Official World Golf Ranking or the members of almost any college team and you'd be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of PowerBilt clubs.
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Once instantly recognizable by its orange and black staff bags on the professional tours, PowerBilt these days is fighting for a toehold in an equipment landscape dominated by a few giants. In more recent years, however, the company lost its way, lagged behind in game-improvement technology - the mortal sin in the golf equipment business - and became an afterthought. PowerBilt Golf has a nearly 100-year history and a tradition of exceptional persimmon drivers and forged irons once used by many of the best players in the world.