Ron Ten Berge and Gulp!

There have been a lot of new product launches and marketing campaigns Ron Ten Berge is proud of but one really sticks out. When he was at Pure Fishing, he was part of the team that launched Gulp! in the United States. Gulp! is an artificial bait that was developed and marketed to be a substitute for live bait. At the time of launch, this notion was and still is revolutionary. If you think about live bait it is usually shrimp or worms—things that are expensive to store and keep alive. On the other side of the equation, you have artificial bait that can be plastic or metal but may not be very enticing to marine life. Gulp! straddles the two.


 Ron Ten Berge’s team helped position the product as, “out-fishes live bait.”. At first, folks were skeptical but they had a lot of fun videos and scientific data to back up their assertions. They knew it was effective because they had tested and developed it in their lab for many years. Once the skepticism wore off, the business exploded. On the retailer side, live bait is super hard to store. You need expensive tanks and coolers. And for the consumer, live bait is only good for a day so you end up wasting a lot. The waste and cost factors make live bait a less desirable product in the face of something like Gulp! It is such a successful product and Ron Ten Berge is extremely proud of of being part of the team that brought GULP! to market.

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