"No one has answered my question re: why else other than to purchase bragging rights would anyone buy a faked Jeff Beck monstrosity? "
Someone with the coin could just want to own a guitar just like their hero Jeff Beck. Just to have one just like him, maybe feel a little closer to their hero.
Sorta like owning a 4001CS or 4004LK?
This does not address the issue of quality or value, because for this person, it doesn't matter. Could not that be who Fender is aiming their Relic series at? Granted, I've been around long enough to realize corporate greed is also at play.
FENDER AND THE BARNUM PHILOSOPHY
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jingle_jangle
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Agreed with John, Mark, Brian.
That is the point of this thread--corporate greed.
Leo was a capitalist. Yep. But was he greedy? Not from anything I've read about him. Dale could answer this best.
My relating this to Enron was to point out exactly this aspect of the whole "relic" thing. Selling something with intrinsic value for far beyond that value, the difference being made up by hyperbolic (exaggerated) claims that cannot be proven as true or false. So to gloss over this, the marketer makes an emotional appeal. And money--more money than the actual goods are worth--changes hands.
If a Beck relic makes a wealthy collector feel closer to his idol, that doesn't reduce the foolishness of the collector's "investment"; it just reduces the impact of the purchase on his wallet. Wealthy collectors aren't stupid as a group; many are self-made and understand the exchange fully; this knowledge makes no difference to them. They want, they buy. It's selfish gratification.
The issue of ownership of a CS or LK (or C58 or 370/12RM or...) bringing a person closer to his (her) hero is of course valid. But MSRPs of these limited editions reflected, not RIC's greed, but their business model.
Lastly, if dander is raised, let's keep it in perspective. I do much of my better lateral thinking when challenged, and my blood pressure going up a bit is (to me) an indication of a good ride. But that's not to say that I want to be abusive...I am glad that some thinking has gone on, and despite some side trips and obfuscation, a few nuggets have come to light.
That is the point of this thread--corporate greed.
Leo was a capitalist. Yep. But was he greedy? Not from anything I've read about him. Dale could answer this best.
My relating this to Enron was to point out exactly this aspect of the whole "relic" thing. Selling something with intrinsic value for far beyond that value, the difference being made up by hyperbolic (exaggerated) claims that cannot be proven as true or false. So to gloss over this, the marketer makes an emotional appeal. And money--more money than the actual goods are worth--changes hands.
If a Beck relic makes a wealthy collector feel closer to his idol, that doesn't reduce the foolishness of the collector's "investment"; it just reduces the impact of the purchase on his wallet. Wealthy collectors aren't stupid as a group; many are self-made and understand the exchange fully; this knowledge makes no difference to them. They want, they buy. It's selfish gratification.
The issue of ownership of a CS or LK (or C58 or 370/12RM or...) bringing a person closer to his (her) hero is of course valid. But MSRPs of these limited editions reflected, not RIC's greed, but their business model.
Lastly, if dander is raised, let's keep it in perspective. I do much of my better lateral thinking when challenged, and my blood pressure going up a bit is (to me) an indication of a good ride. But that's not to say that I want to be abusive...I am glad that some thinking has gone on, and despite some side trips and obfuscation, a few nuggets have come to light.
“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
― Kurt Vonnegut
why else other than to purchase bragging rights would anyone buy a faked Jeff Beck monstrosity?
Or an artificially aged guitar. I'd say - trrrrrend. The same reason why people pay extra money for cellular phones decorated with Swarovski crystals (absolutely non-functional, imho). And trends (imho) are not created by customer. They are created by manufacturers and advertisers. Not everybody are "ad-proof". Retro thing is "en vogue". And not everybody can buy a naturally aged guitar, and if they want something somebody claimed to be en vogue, they now have a choice: either save money for a few years and buy a real thing (but some don't want to wait!), or for a few months and buy a quazi-relic (which, from afar, may look like a real thing). As well as with Swarovski crystals, manufacturers invest money in aging a new finish, and they want to compensate their investments. Some young ("pioneer", as we call them here) punker spends money on artificially aged jeans, t-shirt, and guitar - because he/she cannot wait until they age naturally and cannot afford a naturally aged one (these quazi-relics are less expensive than real relics anyway). Promotion and ads, TV and fashion...
Sorry if it was mentioned before.
IMHO.
Nothing will get you dead quicker than being deadly serious about yourself.
The reason there have been side trips (and I can't believe I'm saying this again) is due to the utter disdain shown for people who might want to buy this stuff. Maybe you don't see it or didn't intend it, but whe you make a comment like 'what sane person' or 'selfish gratification' it exposes a certain disrepect that, honestly, doesn't belong here (even if it is, you 'lair' as someone said).
That I got heated about that is not evidence that I don't see the point you're making.
I can understand that you see this relic business as marketing created snake oil. Who knows. Maybe it is. But even so, I don't have a problem with a company charging what the market will bear. We're not talking about need-it-to-live stuff, we're talking about more or less 'luxury' items.
That I got heated about that is not evidence that I don't see the point you're making.
I can understand that you see this relic business as marketing created snake oil. Who knows. Maybe it is. But even so, I don't have a problem with a company charging what the market will bear. We're not talking about need-it-to-live stuff, we're talking about more or less 'luxury' items.
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freshmattyp
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jingle_jangle
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My qualified comments don't add up to "utter disdain" for anyone but the policymakers in marketing departments. After all, they've discovered that people, when told that they MUST have something for the most outlandish reasons, are then seduced into buying it. Read Vance Packard sometime.
Creativity loses when marketing rules the roost.
You may see the point, but have difficulty in addressing it directly.
The point about "luxury" items was made--by John Allgier (above). You don't have a problem with a company charging "what the market will bear"--I assume for luxury items, Tom.
"Maybe it is"?
You can bet that this is true. (You've never worked hand-in-hand with marketing departments on a corporate level, I'd bet. I have--for over 25 years, in many different product categories--and while the people in general are like people everywhere (good and not so good alike), the mentality that pervades their efforts is deplorable.
Is it possible that you think, after all the yapping that I've done about this--that Fender is taking a FAIR profit? Migod.
Creativity loses when marketing rules the roost.
You may see the point, but have difficulty in addressing it directly.
The point about "luxury" items was made--by John Allgier (above). You don't have a problem with a company charging "what the market will bear"--I assume for luxury items, Tom.
"Maybe it is"?
You can bet that this is true. (You've never worked hand-in-hand with marketing departments on a corporate level, I'd bet. I have--for over 25 years, in many different product categories--and while the people in general are like people everywhere (good and not so good alike), the mentality that pervades their efforts is deplorable.
Is it possible that you think, after all the yapping that I've done about this--that Fender is taking a FAIR profit? Migod.
“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
― Kurt Vonnegut
Yes, Fender is taking a fair profit. I don't know why any company should sell their products for less, if there's a market that is willing to pay more. I can understand if don't do this, but I don't have an issue either way.
What this all boils down do is that I think charging what the market will bear is a perfectly legitimate business practice (again, assume we're talking about non-essentials). The consumers can decide whether there's value in those products and whether they're willing to spend their money on it.
I also don't have a particular issue with marketing driven demand. Perhaps it's naive of me, but I'm capable of deciding what I want to buy based on my own criteria.
What this all boils down do is that I think charging what the market will bear is a perfectly legitimate business practice (again, assume we're talking about non-essentials). The consumers can decide whether there's value in those products and whether they're willing to spend their money on it.
I also don't have a particular issue with marketing driven demand. Perhaps it's naive of me, but I'm capable of deciding what I want to buy based on my own criteria.
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jingle_jangle
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When marketing drives demand, quality and creativity both suffer, as profit becomes the sole motive to conduct business.
This is fine with staple items, like breakfast cereal, produce and steel. (And these are also items which require no creative act on the part of the supplier/manufacturer, and which then become price-per-pound competitive in the marketplace.)
This, by the way, is how Wal-Mart sees everything they sell, and it's why cheap is their byword and guiding principle.
But for anything requiring a high level of brain function to conceptualize and a high level of expertise to manufacture, it's anathema.
As I tell my automotive design students: God forbid Walmart ever gets into the car biz. But with GM and Ford gasping for air, and Walmart sending a fair percentage of our GDP back to China and racking up higher and higher profits, that is not an impossible scenario.
I will always be an advocate of creativity in the service of the consumer, but with marketing in its proper place--as a strategic link and advisor, not as the spark plug that powers the process.
Tom, it looks like you are pretty much OK with letting marketing drive a corporation's sales strategy. Having been a member of several marketing teams in my own checkered past, I can say with some veracity that "lowest common denominator" is aiming high for many.
This Fender thing is my metaphor in this Forum for a sad situation that is becoming endemic.
BTW, I just found out that Fender is doing RELIC AMPS, too!!!
I'm going to personalize this with an anecdote, just in the interest of full disclosure:
OF COURSE I am promoting an agenda. It comes down to a clash between people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing (on one hand) to those who see intangible value like beauty and well-thought-out practicality, in unlikely places.
I could build a really beautiful guitar with my own two hands, using skills honed over three decades of daily use and challenge, and put it on display at NAMM. I could then deal with perhaps ten or twenty people a day engaging me in conversation about my product. I might sell a few, because my price would be based upon my material cost (10% on average of my selling price; it's all labor really) plus a reasonable hourly rate for my 200 hours or so of work. At $10.00/hour, that would be a $2200.00 guitar, and who works for $10 an hour today in the US? (In China, it's $3.00 a DAY. That's why Chinese guitars are doing so well on the bottom end of the market.) Craftsmen should be in the $30.00-$50.00 per hour range, depending on geography. My car mechanic in SF gets $75.00/hour! Not to denigrate my brother mechanics, but they exhibit less creativity than the average luthier.
So, I will be hawking my $6600.00 guitars to a very limited market. If I can sell every one I make and stay busy with 100% efficiency through a 50-week year (a near impossibility), I'll gross $60K and net perhaps $20K after taxes. Living on $20K while risking my entire productive life, year after year, in hopes of somehow building a clientele who will lift me above poverty, is nobody's idea of a dream career.
Next floor up at NAMM would be Fender's Time Machines, built in multiples, assembly-line style. Worth $1200-$2000 in labor, materials, and FAIR markup, selling for $3K-$15K.
I'm a craftsman, doing my own marketing. Fender has honest workers turning out relics (an in the process turning OFF their critical faculties, in the interest of "putting food in their families", as a well-known contemporary sage has put it), with "sky's the limit" profit wh***s in control.
"Cynical, but that's life"? Wow, I hope not...
This is fine with staple items, like breakfast cereal, produce and steel. (And these are also items which require no creative act on the part of the supplier/manufacturer, and which then become price-per-pound competitive in the marketplace.)
This, by the way, is how Wal-Mart sees everything they sell, and it's why cheap is their byword and guiding principle.
But for anything requiring a high level of brain function to conceptualize and a high level of expertise to manufacture, it's anathema.
As I tell my automotive design students: God forbid Walmart ever gets into the car biz. But with GM and Ford gasping for air, and Walmart sending a fair percentage of our GDP back to China and racking up higher and higher profits, that is not an impossible scenario.
I will always be an advocate of creativity in the service of the consumer, but with marketing in its proper place--as a strategic link and advisor, not as the spark plug that powers the process.
Tom, it looks like you are pretty much OK with letting marketing drive a corporation's sales strategy. Having been a member of several marketing teams in my own checkered past, I can say with some veracity that "lowest common denominator" is aiming high for many.
This Fender thing is my metaphor in this Forum for a sad situation that is becoming endemic.
BTW, I just found out that Fender is doing RELIC AMPS, too!!!
I'm going to personalize this with an anecdote, just in the interest of full disclosure:
OF COURSE I am promoting an agenda. It comes down to a clash between people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing (on one hand) to those who see intangible value like beauty and well-thought-out practicality, in unlikely places.
I could build a really beautiful guitar with my own two hands, using skills honed over three decades of daily use and challenge, and put it on display at NAMM. I could then deal with perhaps ten or twenty people a day engaging me in conversation about my product. I might sell a few, because my price would be based upon my material cost (10% on average of my selling price; it's all labor really) plus a reasonable hourly rate for my 200 hours or so of work. At $10.00/hour, that would be a $2200.00 guitar, and who works for $10 an hour today in the US? (In China, it's $3.00 a DAY. That's why Chinese guitars are doing so well on the bottom end of the market.) Craftsmen should be in the $30.00-$50.00 per hour range, depending on geography. My car mechanic in SF gets $75.00/hour! Not to denigrate my brother mechanics, but they exhibit less creativity than the average luthier.
So, I will be hawking my $6600.00 guitars to a very limited market. If I can sell every one I make and stay busy with 100% efficiency through a 50-week year (a near impossibility), I'll gross $60K and net perhaps $20K after taxes. Living on $20K while risking my entire productive life, year after year, in hopes of somehow building a clientele who will lift me above poverty, is nobody's idea of a dream career.
Next floor up at NAMM would be Fender's Time Machines, built in multiples, assembly-line style. Worth $1200-$2000 in labor, materials, and FAIR markup, selling for $3K-$15K.
I'm a craftsman, doing my own marketing. Fender has honest workers turning out relics (an in the process turning OFF their critical faculties, in the interest of "putting food in their families", as a well-known contemporary sage has put it), with "sky's the limit" profit wh***s in control.
"Cynical, but that's life"? Wow, I hope not...
“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
― Kurt Vonnegut
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shamustwin
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jingle_jangle
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Ummm the Fender Forum. Uh-huh.
I was a frequent contributor to the Fender Forum, early in my re-orientation to guitars in general.
I was--how to put it gently--kicked off.
Not for anything I said--I limited my comments in those days to technical advice.
But, a few months back, I tried to log on after a long absence to rave about my then-new Japanese Jags, Jazzmaster, and Mustang. Couldn't get on. So I sent a courteous e-mail to their moderator.
He responded that they terminated my membership because of a SPAMMING problem that they'd had with me. I said, huh? Pardon me? There must be some kind of mistake...can you give me details?
His next e-mail was borderline abusive and insulting--he didn't have time for the likes of me, and would I stop bothering him? I was OUT, period.
I don't remember his name; I'm sure some of our own Forum members know him, but he was inflexible, nasty, and curt. MAJOR attitude.
So I have no time for him, either. But I still love (some of) their products--both new and genuine vintage.
I was a frequent contributor to the Fender Forum, early in my re-orientation to guitars in general.
I was--how to put it gently--kicked off.
Not for anything I said--I limited my comments in those days to technical advice.
But, a few months back, I tried to log on after a long absence to rave about my then-new Japanese Jags, Jazzmaster, and Mustang. Couldn't get on. So I sent a courteous e-mail to their moderator.
He responded that they terminated my membership because of a SPAMMING problem that they'd had with me. I said, huh? Pardon me? There must be some kind of mistake...can you give me details?
His next e-mail was borderline abusive and insulting--he didn't have time for the likes of me, and would I stop bothering him? I was OUT, period.
I don't remember his name; I'm sure some of our own Forum members know him, but he was inflexible, nasty, and curt. MAJOR attitude.
So I have no time for him, either. But I still love (some of) their products--both new and genuine vintage.
“I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did.”
― Kurt Vonnegut
― Kurt Vonnegut
Actually, hair gel ought to be a pretty good way of keeping one's 'dander' down...
All this talk has made me realize I'd better get my mid-60's Tele out of the pawn shop one of these days...(I'm not kidding...it's appalling what one has to do when one needs 200 bucks in a hurry...)
All this talk has made me realize I'd better get my mid-60's Tele out of the pawn shop one of these days...(I'm not kidding...it's appalling what one has to do when one needs 200 bucks in a hurry...)
I didn't get where I am today by being on time...