Editing The Pen Addict 730/transcript (section)

== Ink Formulations ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' There's two things you should keep in mind. Well, one thing you should keep in mind. It's ink formulations. When I say, when I refer to one, Uniball one, that is an ink formulation. And I refer to Zento, that is an ink formulation. I'm not talking about like pen barrels or pen bodies, anything like that. So when I say one or when I say Zento, I'm talking about ink. So Myke, I did a journalism, which we are not journalists here. We never will be. No intent.

'''Myke Hurley:''' But except when you want to be.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Except when you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like now. So I have a contact at Uniball North America, who is the U.S. distributor for Uniball products. So this is, if you've been around a while, this is where like I did a talk for them many years ago at their office in Chicago. And so I've been able to keep in touch with them and fire off some questions when I have them. Like back when the dive, the Uniball dive came out and the pricing was all screwed up. I emailed them and they replied. Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So keep in mind, that is also a very corporate, you know, job there. The reason why I don't do journalism that much is because I don't care what distributors and manufacturers generally have to say. Yeah.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because it's seldom what you want because they're not going to tell you what you want to know. You know, they're going to tell you what they want you to know, which is just, you know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. So people say, well, why don't you email them? And my reply is because I already know the answer.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Like I don't need that. So this one, I do have a good relationship with Uni and did get, I did get, I sent two questions, short email, two questions. And I was curious if I was going to get an answer. And as of this morning, I have answers. So question number one, is the ink formulation of the Zento classified as a rollerball type ink or a gel? I see some confusion around this and I myself can't sort it out. So I first reviewed the Zento last year and I have this link in the show notes. And that link also has the UniBall product pages, the UniBall Japan product pages. And this is what I always reference when people talk about the Zento being a gel ink pen. There's nowhere on UniBall Japan, the Mitsubishi homepage, where they go through literally the in-depth product talk about the Zento. You cannot find the word gel anywhere in these pages, right? So it became very confusing to me when I saw retailers popping out the Zento gel ink pen on their pages, right? To sell.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So it's like they are using it as a broad term, right? Yeah. Like where there is specificity here, but people are just saying this is a gel ink pen because it like clicks in the mind of the consumer rather than whether it's actually correct or not.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So your statement is very prescient in the answer that I got. Okay. And this will all make a lot more sense. So in answer to that question, UniBall said to me, in regards to Zento's ink formulation, we've called it a hybrid, i.e. roller gel or liquid gel here in the US. For most resellers, we've positioned it in the gel category for simplicity.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There you go.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It has all of the best characteristics of both roller and gel, low viscosity, smooth writing, quick dry time, no smearing or smudging. Hopefully that helps. It's a hard one to pin down, but writes beautifully. So which is it then?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a hard one to pin down, Myke. They're still not saying, right? They're still not saying, but it's a hybrid. So the UniBall Jetstream is a classified hybrid ink, but no one refers to it as anything but a ballpoint ink because that's pretty much what it is. The original Jetstream was classified as a ballpoint from the beginning, even though it was a hybrid ink.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It has some gel property, right? Yes. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And they talk about that in the ink description, right? I don't... I love my friend, Myke. I don't want to hear that it's a hard one to pin down. But they have taken to using gel as the descriptor for Zento. And I actually think that's a problem. I would be in that meeting saying, well, then we just have product line confusion with literally every other gel ink that we make is great.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, are they doing this then? Are they... So they say the Jetstream's a rollerball, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No. Ballpoint. Ballpoint. Hybrid. Hybrid. Hybrid. Hybrid.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They say that's a hybrid.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The Jetstream.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So maybe they just don't want to keep saying everything's a hybrid, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But that's actually a feature. That's actually a good feature of the Zento. Well, it's different.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I just mean like you put this on the shelves in the stationery store. It's just easier to call it a gel ink pen, right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' A thousand percent. And it's going to sell more.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Without question, it's going to sell more if you put gel on that. So anyway, so that's that answer. So it's a hybrid ink. Okay. I feel satisfied in that it's actually a rollerball hybrid. If you look on like the uni product pages again, they call it liquid. You don't ever call a gel ink any gel ink formulation. You don't ever use the term liquid.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's a water-based rollerball when you use that terminology. So I'm fine with calling it a hybrid. I'm going to call it a hybrid rollerball with maybe some gel ink properties. Like the Jetstream is a hybrid ballpoint with some gel ink properties. I think that's fine. I think that's fine. But they want to position it as a gel, at least in the U.S. market. And that's fine too. But to me, if you look at my review, that actually makes it worse. It's not as good as their other gel inks, but it's better than every one of their rollerball inks. So that's just my opinion, right? And using all of these pens, it's maybe the third or fourth best gel ink pen, but it's the best rollerball ink pen. Because it only has the Vision, the Vision Elite, the Deluxe, and the Onyx to go up against. And it's better than all those by like a pretty good margin. So anyway. All right. So that was my ink formulation question. I'm actually good with the answer, but it's not helping the overall situation. But for the consumer, it's fine. Like it's good. Like it's just going to be classified as a gel.