Marketing a New Generation of Camo

The other day I was downtown Bozeman visiting the new local Schnee's store, which use to be Powderhorn Sports. As I walked through the newly remodeled store I was struck by the major changes that had occurred. As I stepped into the hunting room tucked deep in the corner of the store I noticed a sales associate informing one of the customers of Sitka hunting gear. Sitka Gear is new revolution to the camo hunting world, as it presents a newly digital style camo patter that is meant to break up the outline of a hunter in the eyes ones prey. This newer camo pattern is designed with an animals vision in mind rather than what us as humans can see. It's so different than any other camo pattern available on the market, which leads to a lot of skeptics of its overall effectiveness. As I meandered around the two discussing the product I was extremely curious how an old school hunter would accept this new camo. This made me realize deeper that marketing a product that is so different to hunters compared to traditional camo patterns had been created and marketed effectively to compete with the biggest names of the hunting clothes industry. The first question that rises is how does Sitka take a pattern that has never been seen before and make believers in it? What kind of marketing strategy did they target to be as effective as they are. Was it the product placement on hunting television shows, or just the outrageous amount of advertising dollars that were spent to promote the product. To me it is as if one were to compete against coca-cola. How can a new company enter a market and rise to the top as if they had been around 100 years? Although there are skeptics of Sitka Gear, there are also a ton of avid hunters that are believers in this camo. It truly interest me how consumers develop trust and loyalty to a product that doesn't seem like it would work in the field. This kind of stuff makes me enjoy the field of marketing as it intrigues me to know more of how consumers react to new and old products through marketing.