Brand Mix

Photo courtesy of Franco Folini; permission being requested

As I was wandering around Golden Gate Park last weekend, I (all at once) saw a crowd of Segways. What, from a distance, looked like a demolition derby was, in fact, a game of Segway Polo being played for a good cause.

Segways are, in some respects, the epitome of a product with tons of differentiation but little to no relevance. It was launched with huge hype with expectations that it would revolutionize transportation. Steve Jobs himself predicted it would be as "big a deal as the PC" proving that even he can be wrong sometimes. Instead, the Segway sold very few units brought down by safety concerns, high price, not enough power, a dorkish design and, ultimately, because it just did not match consumers transportation needs.

But they are still around and, bit by bit, they have found some niches of transportational usefulness. Police departments from Chicago to Beijing have used them for their mobility and several tour groups have set up Segway tours so that tourists can visit more city highlights. Now we can add Segway Polo to the list.

Some have wondered whether Segway Polo might popularize the Segway the same way that auto polo apparently popularized the car in an earlier era. Frankly, I doubt it but, with a few more niches discovered and enough momentum built to warrant a radically different design, perhaps the Segway does have a future after all.