Women’s Love ‘em or Hate ‘em Attitude Toward Cosmetics

A couple of years ago we came out with a new line of ladies golf clubs called the iBella Obsession. These were well…hot pink as well as white – not exactly my cup of coffee, but then again I am not the target market. Over the past few years I have had the pleasure to speak with a lot of women about the color choice our company selected upon for its’ signature ladies-specific line of golf equipment.

Trying to appease the female golfer - a manufacturer's dilemma

There was one camp of women who couldn’t be happier with our color choices. For those women we looked like geniuses and I didn’t mind the time to talk over the phone or read their email. And then there was the other camp of women who thought we were baboon butts for thinking that women actually wanted hot lipstick pink on anything, especially a golf club. Believe me, you are not going to win any brownie points for trying to talk or write your way out that argument. So there you have it, we made a ladies line that one, women absolutely loved it or two, they absolutely hated it. There was no middle ground.

The sad part was once you got women (or young ladies) to get over the cosmetics and try the clubs, the feedback was extremely good. After all, the generous lofts and low centers of gravity made the clubs user-friendly to get the ball airborne for those with reduced swing speeds. So we decided to appease those that wouldn’t touch those clubs with a ten foot pole. Instead of coming out with an entirely new line, we added a second color option; the sleek new iBella Obsession Black series. After all, we all know that black goes with everything.

In a year from now we will know if we have satisfied our female clientele or if we create a situation where a third of the customers love the original pink, another third love the new black and then we have only alienated the other third. But by the end of the day we are making progress and for those women who do not like either color choice can always chose our men’s models custom fit with shafts, grips and lengths to suit them.

However, if you are in the pro "pink" camp, we do offer matching pink golf grips and pink shafts.