Fredo76

At last, a discussion on what does or does not constitute branding, and without a cow in sight!

rekmeyata

I've owned 3 Treks in my lifetime, they were all steel, including the first year they made frames and forks for sale in 1976, when I bought a TX900. So I was enthusiastic about buying from Trek because they were a young startup privately owned company making their frames and forks in America. And then problems started, Trek because a stock owned company and got too big for their britches and moved production of almost all of their bikes to either China, Cambodia, or Taiwan, at that point I decided to stop buying Treks and will never go back to them, I feel they betrayed their workers and America, greed became more important so shareholders can make money, it's the American way, isn't it?

Maelochs

Yes ... a company should stop growing and if possible, stay in an unfriendly business situation where it cannot make a profit compared t competitors, and go out of business. Anything else would be dishonest.

Trek would not exist if it had not followed the trend of its competition. The people who worked at trek USA would still be out of work, because the company would be bankrupt.

Now of course, Trek employs people around the world, including a sizeable number in the US .... but you want all those people to lose their jobs ... because widespread unemployment would be "honest."

Good lord .... Do you have a clue about Anything?

Troul 

i'm not sure who all has the down tube storage feature like the Domane, but that with the ISO stuff will be a give-away to who made it.

Sierra_rider

IMO, garish bike branding probably reached its zenith about 20 years ago. For the most part, I think bikes are more understated nowadays.

Bet you can't tell what brand my bike is :

mstateglfr 

contract? Trek owns Bontrager.
They have used Bontrager as a components nd accessories brand for years now, but feel like there is now more value in using the Trek name for many of those items.
Yeah, your guess on the why is correct.

^ this is per the geek warning podcast.

mstateglfr 

1- branding all over a bike is hardly new. It's been done for decades from all sorts of major brands. It hasn't cheapened any brands so dar, and no reason to think it has cheapened Trek.

2- I find it comical that you are criticizing how a bike looks. Glass houses.

Atlas Shrugged

These forums are much like a Bavarian farmhouse, It’s only a matter of time until the Cuckoo’s start coming out!

Trakhak

Europcar spent tens of millions of Euros sponsoring a professional cycling team for about a decade. When they finally announced that they were ceasing to sponsor the team and the news appeared in a Cyclingnews article, one of the first comments under the article was from a guy who had been a big fan of the team. He said that he would never rent another car from Europcar and urged everyone who read his comment to do the same. (I imagined potential replacement sponsors, about to commit, reading that comment and pulling out of the deal---"Dodged a bullet there!")

Trek started out building bikes in the U.S. and continued doing so as long as it made economic sense. So did Cannondale. Specialized sourced their bikes from Asia from the start. Is Specialized the good guy? I can't decide.

mstateglfr 

I checked your posted list of bikes you own.
Hahaha, that is hilarious.

Current Masi? 80s Schwinn Voyageur?
Come on now. Apply your rant to your own bikes.

Steel Charlie

My Gios Compact had the logo in 13 places on the bike - plus the signature on the top tube

terrymorse 

When one company purchases another company, there is a contract, which spells out the terms. Some of those terms may extend for years after the contract is signed.

mstateglfr 

terrymorse 

Nuanced and well thought out retort.

mstateglfr 

I thought it showed what was needed to be said, but I can elaborate.

Yes you are correct in your analysis. That can happen. There has been no indication that your scenario applies to the Trek/Bontrager discussion. Since there is no indication that your explanation applies, I did not find the clarification to be useful or to advance the discussion further.
As such, I posted a gif that shows both agreement and dismissiveness at the same time.




ETA- I am disheartened to see you no longer feel it is classy and now view it as nuanced. I was going for classy. Darn!

Eric F 

Ummm...Terry is correct. Buyout contracts can cover a lot of things, including allowable name/brand usage and non-compete terms.

mstateglfr 

Oh good lord.
Yes, I recognize he is correct. There has been 0 discussion of this for the example in question though. Trek is moving some stuff that was Bontrager branded over to Trek branded. Some Bontrager branding is staying.
There is no indication of non-compete concerns. There is no indication of allowable name/brand usage concerns.


There has been nothing at all about this being a contractual change due to the brand purchase 29 years ago.
I mean, yeah sure there is a chance the purchase agreement 29 years ago said 'Trek can use Bontrager as a brand name for all sorts of components and gear, but 29 years from now, Trek must reduce the number of items labeled Bontrager, but Trek can still use the brand on some items'.
Yep, that's possible. I wouldn't say it's likely. I wouldn't say it's even remotely the case. But sure- since none of us have seen the contract details, I will say it is possible.

Good point by Terry.**

terrymorse 

Let me elaborate, then.

Your initial comment ("Contract? Trek owns Bontrager.") implied that a contract couldn't restrict what Trek could do with Bontrager brand or products.

I replied to clarify, since the terms of a contract may restrict what the buyer can do after the acquisition. Was my clarification useful? Maybe, to some.

Of course, I have no inside knowledge of the Trek-Bontrager contract, and I doubt anyone else here does, either.

That is all.

seypat

Come on folks, time to get back to the hating.

Trek sucks.

Maelochs

Like all the rest of us ... I have no idea about the terms of the sale of Bontrager's name, naming rights, whatever. I don;'t know how much if anything Keith Bontrager still earns from trek or if it was all paid off at once ... or over time, and has been paid off since. Like all the rest of us ...
Not sure why some components will keep the Bontrager brand and some will not ... none of us do.
I don't know if Bontrager collected or still collects royalties or some sort of residual payments on runs of parts. I am not sure if he received a lump sum and the deal as done, or how he was compensated. I don't think any of us know the details.
I see nothing wrong with @mstateglfr 's post. he said he saw some relevant information on a website. He never said there was no contract---at least as I read it---but was saying that Trek wholly owns the Bontrager brand. And ... maybe they do. I am sure neither of us knows certainly what the terms of the contract might be---residuals or not, lump sum, stock options, payouts over time ...... .

Fairly certain none of this has anything to do with people hating Trek ....

rekmeyata

So what you're saying is that a company cannot grow in America, they need to stay in China and build crappy bikes to be competitive? I'm glad you explained that me. Personally, I don't give a rats arse about people being employed in other countries with American companies, our companies need to employ our people first. And now we're seeing American companies that left the US to do business with China are starting to come back now. So I disagree with your business model, typical democrat way of doing business, take all the businesses and money out of America, that's what success is...BS!

Maelochs

^ You are either dense or dishonest, or both. I did not say what you claim, I said what I said.

You are ... . yeah, never mind,. You are not worth getting suspended.

You having to be you is the worst punishment I could think of for you anyway.

Eric F 

Please provide an example of a US-only bike company on a similar scale to Trek.

Also, that’s not what he said, and you’re missing the point.

Bully4

I understand Rekmeyata's concern. There is a humanitarian issue for the victims of outsourcing. If all business and industry gets outsourced, where are we going to work? And......how will we afford bikes? It is a theory of extremes, but this practice has affected different geographic areas to different degrees. It is a battle of wage structures along with living standards.

I've seen the empty steel mills along with the empty Cannonade factory in my proximity. Both seem to have fallen to the outsourcing practice for numerous reasons. What happened to the people?

I have a 401 along with most working class people. I'm sure there are investments in outsourced companies. I don't like it; however, it seems very similar to being a boxer that bets on the other guy to win the fight. Neither politics nor greed matter to the frontline worker that gets sent home for good.

Trek used to make some higher model frames here. Apparently that practice has changed over the years.

Is it a valid reason to not ride Trek? Only you can answer that one.

Maelochs

Dude .... if you conflate two unrelated topics and attack a person for the half he was not addressing, you are a dishonest person at least, and maybe worse.

Yes ... Ii think All of us have seen the out-sourcing of American jobs. I mean, most of us have been alive for quite a while, and are not unaware. We have seen national corporations become international corporations in order to take advantage of near-slave wages and a lack of environmental and worker-protection laws in other countries. We have seen America's economy gutted as most of the manufacturing jobs went away, leaving only service jobs ans upper-level management .... Meanwhile we have seen the US tax base gutted as more companies find ways to ship profit overseas.

That has Nothing to do with what a particular company chose to do to remain profitable in that situation.

One reason people are angry about out-sourcing so many jobs is because once a certain number of major corporations choose that route, the rest must either fold or follow suit. This is what Trek chose to do----when no factory in the US would or could produce bike frames as cheaply as Taiwan-owned factories in Communist China, Trek faced bankruptcy or had to buy what it could afford, where those items were sold.

(On a side note---Shimano has always had factories in Communist China and Malaysia ... no one ever complains.)

@Bully4 ---if you want to jump into this debate, please make sure you know what is being debated. No one is defending the general trend of off-shoring. What I and a few others have said is that Trek, given the state of the global economy, had no choices but to shrink unto bankruptcy or to take the same road is its competitors. I maintain that by moving to Asian production, Trek has managed to stay in business, and probably employs as many or more people in the US than it did back in its early US-only days.

If you disagree with what I have said, please address specific points with contrary evidence. I don't mind a good discussion, and if I see I was wrong I will say so. But if you want to jump in and misinterpret what I said (as another had done) then I might feel compelled to respond in a less friendly fashion.

Not saying I am right, but I say what I say, and will discuss what I say, not what someone pretends I say. Not intending to be harsh or negative to you, Bull4---just making sure we keep on the same page in the discussion, so we are actually responding and not just ranting.

/rant off.