Thanks for the votes of confidence everyone. I have been in this business for a long time and I haven't been quiet. Very often I place myself on the seemingly "wrong" side of issues so I expect a certain amount of criticism to come with it.
On the other side I also try to go beyond expectations of service and give the level of service that I expect to get when I am trading my money for something. I am often very disappointed in the way the world "works". I am often quite upset when someone won't even do that which they are able to do to make a situation better. Not always though as I am often pleased to be serviced by people who do know what it means to take care of the customer.
So because of that I am lucky that the majority of my customers over the years have been happy with my service to them. I could be a little quicker on the communication though.
As to the name issue - this is a very personal thing with me. There are some quite devious things going on in the cue case field that don't sit well with me. Cue cases are really an insgnificant part of what makes the world go around. What pisses me off though is how some companies and individuals feel like they can dupe and deceive the billiard public because they think that no one will find out and also that no one will step up to stop them.
I am not going to start a public relations war to appeal to the public's sense of decency on these issues. There are too many legal and ethical aspects to decipher anyway. I am hitting them in the marketplace where it hurts. This all sounds cryptic and may or not be made clear someday but it is what it is.
I am no angel, far from it. This is not an excercise in charity. I am providing a case based on the body of work of a pioneer in this business and giving him full credit for the inspiration for the purpose of competing directly with another manufacturer's similar offering. The fact that I am giving credit where credit is due, in addition to being the right thing to do, is to combat the deceptiveness with which my competitors sell their products.
There is nothing wrong with making cases that emulate another maker's work. There are very few that are ever 100% innovative. Most end up with a mixture of other people's styles and their own creations. If we didn't build on what came before us then we would still be in the stone age.
When it comes to branding though then that's a different story. A brand is a promise from the brand owner to the consumer of certain level of quality or prestige that comes with it.`This promise is backed by the reputation that the brand has earned. There is something wrong with using a brand that makes a promise and doesn't deliver. That's the moral side of it.
The ethical side is that a brand can have a very real value to it. It, by itself, is property. Therefore if someone steals a brand, even if they can deliver the exact same quality or better, they are stealing real property.
However, just like real property, a brand can also be worthless. It can be abandonded, it can be thrown away and effectively given up for adoption if you will.
If that happens then it's free for anyone to pick it up and try to rebuild it's former reputation or even bring it to greater recognition.
In this situation, the actual brand is J.EF Q Cases. The subliminal brand, is "Flowers" because that is what the cases have come to be known as. I chose the name J.Flowers because I wanted that association with the old brand so that I could make the deliberate connection.
Not because the old brand has any promise of quality or prestige to any but a very few people. No, I chose it because I want it to eventually mean quality and prestige and history. When someone else asks a J.Flowers case owner in the future who J.Flowers is then they can answer it with knowledge and pride. There won't be any deception, the consumer won't unwittingly pass on a lie told to them unwittingly by the retailer who is passing it along from the distributor where it was started by the manufacturer.
That's why I am doing this in this way. Some don't agree with me and consider it morally wrong to resurrect a brand. Time will tell if I am right.
In the meantime I have listened to all of your suggestions and I have talked with some of my friends outside the billiard industry concerning this issue. I may make some changes to the brand to more accurately refect the tribute nature of using the words J.Flowers. I thank you all, inlcuding the critics, who have offered up your supoprt and suggestions.
John Barton
Case Maker
