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Joe Murfin

First of all, I want to protest being referred to as an “Icon”.  It makes me feel old, somewhat stationary and important.  In truth, only the “old”: label applies.  I’m humbled by my position of Vice President of Marketing for Daisy and chairman of the board of the non-profit corporation, Daisy Airgun Museum. 

I’m fortunate to work for an organization which values family and with an executive team which models Christian ethics. 

I’m also fortunate to work for a company which has top of mind awareness (Quickly….name an airgun company.) that puts it in the “superbrand” category. How much easier it is to promote a brand that everyone has heard of, that generations have experienced and that many truly love.  When people ask me what our biggest marketing challenge is today, I often respond that, “Our job is just not to mess it up.”  We stand on a platform supported by over 120 years of branding, product development, advertising and promotion.  We are the beneficiary of the unmatched brand awareness created by a great heritage.  We protect this brand, its consistent appearance, its values and its applications -  just like we all protect our own good names. 

My responsibilities include the oversight of all Daisy communications – which includes public and press relations, participating in new product development and differentiation, packaging continuity, printed and online materials to support our retail customers and our sales team, advertising messages, promotions, sponsorships and partnerships.  But that all boils down to capitalizing on our heritage, being consistent in our message, protecting this great brand and, “not messing up” what’s made Daisy such a great and household name for over 120 years.

10 questions with Industry Icons!

Joe Murfin, Daisy Outdoor Products

1. YSSA: How were you introduced to the shooting sports?
Murfin: My father gets all the credit.  And, yes, it was with a Daisy model 80 Long Rifle which he gave me for Christmas.  My parents kept the gun for me all these years and I still have it today.  My Dad loved guns.  I guess because, in his childhood years, hunting was not only a great sport but a method by which the family often ate.  My Dad was a WWII Veteran who returned home with a Mauser rifle, broom-handle Nazi officer’s pistol, flare guns and other war and holocaust-related mementos in his duffle bag.  With him present, my brother and I were allowed to handle his guns.  We never tested that rule out of respect for him and out of fear of a board which hung in the garage.  I grew up with the standard ownership progression of single shot .22 rifle, shotgun and supervised use of my Dad’s pistols.  Our house was burglarized in 1983 and the most important things I lost were those guns.  Not because of their monetary value but because of what they symbolized to me.  The insurance money could never re-purchase what those guns meant to me. They were a rite of passage.  They meant that my Dad recognized that I was ready for the responsibility that came with them. 
   
2. YSSA: What is your most memorable shooting or hunting experience?
Murfin: Again, since I lost my father in 2006, I think I’d have to say some of the early lessons learned on the Pendleton, Indiana farm on which he was born and raised.  My cousins and I used to clean “Spatsies” out of the barn for my Grandmother.  And, she could and would cook anything we brought her, from groundhog to squirrel to turtle steak.  Rabbit hunting along the lane in those wheat fields with my uncles was also a great bonding experience. 

3. YSSA: Are you concerned about reported declines in participation by youth in the shooting sports?
Murfin: I think relying on those “reported declines” is just as dangerous as believing the doomsday economic reporting going on the television networks today.  It can be self-fulfilling.  A Washington bureaucrat opens his mouth and the market takes a dive.  Sure, we can’t ship a Daisy airgun into Manhattan, New York City.  But New York State is a tremendous hunting and shooting sports state.  I’d like us to be careful what we listen to, what we repeat and what we believe.  Today, not everyone hunts for food like my Dad did in the 1920s.  And, not every family gives their child a Daisy BB gun for Christmas when they reach that age.  However, you would not even begin to think that if you attended the NWTF convention, RMEF’s Elk Camp, the NRA Show, a DU, QU or Mule Deer or NRA banquet, or a 4-H Shooting Sports, National Guard, NRA, Boy Scout, American Legion or Royal Rangers’ shooting education class.  The fact is we may never again live in a time or place where everyone hunts or shoots.  But our sport is alive and there are some excellent examples of growth and success all around us.   

4. YSSA: What do you think are our greatest challenges in recruiting and retaining new shooters and hunters?
Murfin: Never before in our wonderful capitalistic society have we been bombarded by so many choices in products to purchase and activities in which to engage.  I’m often asked if Daisy’s biggest competitor is Crosman.  I usually respond that Daisy and Crosman face the same onslaught of competition – not from each other but from the many choices of real, virtual and cyberspace-based entertainment from which young people can choose.  Getting them off the couch is step one.  Overcoming fear and apprehension is step two.  Pairing them with a mentor is critical.      

5. YSSA: What role does youth shooting sports programs play in your company or organization’s customer/member development process?
Murfin: We have a saying at Daisy:  “It All Starts Here”.  There is no doubt that the youth segment of our product has, for generations, been and is still today, a person’s first gun.  Our company and our products are the stepping stones to the entire firearms industry.  Through the YSSA we support numerous worthy, qualified and needy organizations who are doing great things with young and first-time shooters.  Through our retail customers who list our products, we are involved in many events.  Through our affiliation with various conservation organizations we help to preserve wildlife, land and, most importantly, a sport and a way of life.  Directly, we work with thousands of non-profits, coaches and mentors; developing affordable products which take young people from 5-meter, 4-position BB gun team competition to 10-meter, 3-position match competition.        

6. YSSA: How does your company or organization support youth shooting sports programs?
Murfin: Having made BB guns for over 120 years, I suppose you could say that we’ve been an integral part of teaching young people to shoot safely for over 120 years.  We literally wrote the book – a “10 lesson curriculum” – on teaching gun safety and marksmanship skills, in 1955.  With minor modifications, that curriculum is still used by leading organizations today.  Daisy remains devoted to youth shooting sports programs.  Our Daisy AVANTI model 499 is the choice gun for 5-meter BB competition and the Daisy AVANTI Legend, Elite, Medalist and Gold Medalist are the guns with which young people take home gold medals at the majority of Sporter 10-meter air rifle matches.  Daisy’s International BB Gun Championship Match has been conducted annually since 1965.  Thousands of young people will compete in state matches across the country.  About  45 teams attend the match annually.  In 2009, Daisy has committed to present $1,000 to each team which qualifies for and attends the match.  To wrap it up, we support youth shooting sports monetarily, through dedication to product development, curriculum development and through expertise.  But we would be embarrassed and remiss to take the credit alone.  There are some amazing parents, grandparents, mentors and coaches all across the country who, on a voluntary basis, work with these kids and do great things.      

7. YSSA: How do you encourage your employees to contribute their time and talent to encourage youth to shoot and hunt?
Murfin: I don’t know that there is any one thing that we do.  Our management team models that behavior and it’s contagious.  We maintain three different types of airgun ranges which enable us, as staffing allows, to present our products and the fun of shooting to thousands of young people.  It’s usually not a matter of having to scrounge for staff to attend and work at an event.  It’s usually a matter of having to be fair by passing the privilege around. 

8. YSSA: What would you encourage individual shooters and hunters to do to ensure our traditions remain viable in the future?
Murfin: In the past two summer Olympic Games, the relay races were not won or lost based on speed of the runners.  The races were won and lost based on the ability or failure of the runners to pass the baton within the “zone”.  The perpetuation of our sport also requires handing-off the baton at the right time.  We have to come to terms with our mortality and constantly be in the process of developing not just new participants but new leaders.  Recognize when you are in the “zone” – when it’s time to hand off the baton to the next coach and the next generation. I recently attended a 30th anniversary homecoming of a BB shooting team.  Many of the kids who were in that program thirty or twenty-five or twenty years ago are now 28 to 45 years old.  They still regard that shooting team experience as one of the most influential character-building experiences of their lives. Many of them are now qualified instructors and shooting sports coaches.  Be a mentor.  There is no greater reward.    

9. YSSA: What must clubs and shooting range facilities do to develop a “family-friendly” shooting atmosphere?
Murfin: We have to make it easy and affordable.  We have to eradicate barriers to shooting and eliminate intimidation factors.  I’d start small with a specific family session or event.  Offer coaching, develop family membership, encourage friendly competition and award prizes.  Remember how diverse and how huge the “competition” for a families’ time is.  Your goal is to make it as easy and as gratifying to go to a range as it is to turn on the Wii.  Tall order, but that’s the situation.

10. YSSA: What people and/or organizations do you admire most for their contributions in providing pathways for new shooters and hunters?
Murfin: Sports are good at creating heroes.  In football there’s the Super Bowl.  Football heroes wear gaudy rings, make millions of dollars and end up spokespersons for products or as network color commentators.  But the heroes of the shooting sports are harder to find. Sure, there are the young people who win Daisy’s International BB Gun Championship Match each July.  They go on to professions in which they live-out the ethics and disciplines which were engrained in their early shooting team experience.  There are select young people who join a JROTC program, participate on an airgun team or in drill rifle competition and dedicate their lives to serving our country.  Some earn an NCAA college scholarship shooting on a university airgun team.  There are a select few who earn a position on the team which represents our country in international competitions (yes, airgun is an Olympic sport!).  Then there are the parents who support their own kids’ interest in participating on a team.  And there are the coaches of those teams who will spend a lifetime being a positive influence on thousands of kids.  Real heroes are not always easy to find.  When I encounter them, helping to set up a range at a youth event or driving a van to a BB gun match or writing to Daisy to tell a story about how their team raised funds to get to a national competition, or bragging just a little about their son or daughter’s latest score, I always thank them. 

YSSA: Closing thoughts?
Murfin: There are a lot of good causes out there you can support.  But some of them are spread pretty thin in the diversity of causes they represent.  If shooting sports is your passion, consider a cash, airgun or firearm donation to the non-profit Youth Shooting Sports Alliance.  You can be assured that you’ll be leaving a legacy…helping a young person enjoy the same great experiences you have.