Evolution 3 - An "idea cooperative"

We're pushing this thing forward.

Over the weekend, I took Friday and Monday off to play in an event called the Heritage Non-Classic. Seventy-two players, all of them golf lovers, and 71 of them wanted to know what we do at BURRIS. (What can I say? It's a friendly group.)

We're an "idea cooperative," I'd say. They would scratch their heads, work up their best quizzical looks, and say something like, "Come again?"

BURRIS is an idea company, I'd tell them, and we do our best thinking, our best work, when we work in cooperation with our customers and for their brands.

For instance, it's not the advertising we created for Softspikes that made that product perhaps the most powerful new brand in golf in the 1990's. It was getting golfers - good golfers, the ones who influence other golfers - to try them. It was getting superintendents to endorse the use of plastic cleats on their greens. It was getting exclusive private golf courses to ban on metal spikes...so everyone could see the benefit of smooth putting surfaces. And if we still worked with the company (Softspikes was acquired by Pride Tees in 2002), we would innovate ways to encourage golfers to change their cleats at least as often as they change their golf gloves.

The power of the "idea cooperative" is the strength behind the brand we call BURRIS. And we're absolutely focused on our golf and home furnishings practices to grow our business in an environment where ideas can have so much more impact than merely the next ad or direct mail or brochure.