Bernd Flügel has been a professional snowboarder and windsurfer in the board sports sector for 35 years. He has been in charge of F2 since 2009 and is responsible for its expansion into a broad-based board sports brand.
In the surf interview, he talks about the advantage of product diversity in his company, the "phantom prices" of competitors and advertising with Dieter Bohlen.
SURF: Bernd, F2 is much more than just a windsurfing brand. How are you currently positioned?
Bernd Flügel: Since I acquired the licences for the F2 name in 2009, we have increasingly diversified. Our core business today is snowboarding, where we are currently the market leader and have even won Olympic and World Championship titles with our boards. The only German snowboard medals at Sochi were won on F2. Since I took over in 2009, however, we have expanded extremely in all areas. Our range not only includes snowboards for all disciplines, but also windsurf boards, sails, masts, forks, neos, harnesses, accessories, wakeboards and SUPs. We currently have 48 SUP models in our range alone.
How many people currently work at F2?
We have almost 60 employees and importers in 42 countries.
Looking at your windsurfing range, it seems as if time has stood still - at least if you take the model names as a yardstick. Rebel, Rodeo, Vegas, these boards were around many years ago.
We currently have 13 models in our windsurfing board range. The names have actually been around for a long time, but the shapes are regularly refined and revised.
Who is responsible for the shapes in the first place?
F2 is trying to break new ground here. We have a team manager, Paul Simmerl, who looks after our team. It consists of ten riders and develops the key data for a new board. The corresponding prototypes are then built in collaboration with the shapers from the customisation company Flikka. When we know at the end of the tests which board will go into production, we order it from Cobra in Thailand. We already launched the new Freestlyer Rodeo last autumn, with further updates to follow, for example the Silver Arrow and the Waveboard Rodeo.
One of the main differences to many other brands is the pricing. Your boards are quite cheap over the counter...
Our policy is to sell good products at a fair price. The official sales prices of many competitors are phantom prices anyway, which cannot be realised at the shop counter. If the prices for windsurfing products are right, then more people will go out on the water again. That's why we have material sets up to 1200 euros in the entry-level range. We sell high-quality wave and freestyle designs for between 1500 and 1800 euros. Soon there will also be a "Rodeo light", which will retail for 1399 euros, because no retailer sells a freestyle board for 2500 euros.
How can these prices be realised? Where do you make savings?
As a company, we don't carry around a "water head". Our team is small but good and we understand each other. We don't want to afford Köster & Co, because these costs affect the products. Because we occupy so many other sports segments, such as kiting, SUP, wakeboarding and of course snowboarding, we can greatly reduce the general costs per unit. With 120,000 "board units" sold per year across all sports, we are certainly by far the number one in the board sports sector worldwide.
But the lion's share of this is probably accounted for by other segments, isn't it?
Snowboarding and SUP are by far the biggest in terms of unit sales. In windsurfing, we are currently only in the second or third tier - we know that.
Do you windsurf for nostalgic reasons or do you want to move forward again?
Since the former F2 shaper Dani Aeberli(today Product Manager at Fanatic, the editors)stopped working for us, we regularly revised the shapes. We never left. But now windsurfing is also picking up speed again, with Paul Simmerl and his team bringing in a breath of fresh air. Especially when it comes to SUP, we have the feeling that it is fuelling windsurfing in a positive way.
In what way?
F2 currently has seven inflatable windsurf boards in its range. SUPing with inflatable boards and a mast foot option is reawakening many old surfers who had given up windsurfing. As we are extremely well positioned in this segment, we are naturally hoping to win back market share.
You have been beating the marketing drum massively in the SUP sector. Commercials on RTL during the programme "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" and competitive prices at Lidl...
Yes, we stepped on the gas. In the water sports sector, it's not the order of the day for a water sports brand to run adverts on RTL at prime time during a programme like "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" with Dieter Bohlen. A total of 180 adverts were shown on television, and over five million flyers with an F2 SUP fluttered into German households via Lidl advertising.
What do you think of the campaign? Are such broadsides really worthwhile?
Quite positive! The advertised board was sold out across Europe after five hours. However, the promotional factor of the campaign was far more important to us than the sales: the message "People, get out on the water" resonates in any case and if we get a reasonably good summer, I believe that many people will take the opportunity to get out on the water. And once people can stand on a SUP and it also has a mast foot option, the step to windsurfing is not far away.
Further information on the F2 brand and all products can be found at www.f2.com
