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Location: NJ | btw: "nice shirt". |
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Location: SoCal | Yeah, be sarcastic. But you can't see what's really important about that shirt. It's a L.A. Dodgers Hawwaiin shirt. Go Dodger Blue.
Ok, now get really sarcastic. I'm going to duck under my desk to avoid the incoming shots! |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | I have the somewhat unique convenience of living close to the (allegedly) largest Gibson guitar IN THE WORLD. While I cannot refute that claim outright, I can say I got a personal tour of their "underground". They have entire rooms devoted to one model year of guitar copies, e.g., 1957 Les Pauls next to 1958 Les Pauls in the adjacent room. Now, admittedly, this begs the question, "Who are all these people buying all these esoteric instruments from a dealer in a comparatively small city in southeastern Washington state?! Simple, marketing and brand recognition, with the primary vehicle the internet, and guitar shows. These ain't no loss leaders, either. My tour guide casually hands me an exquisite Firebird copy to ogle and drool over, and I durn near fainted when he told me I could take it home for a paltry 12 grand!
Anyrate, simple supply and demand parameters. There will always be a portion of the manufacturing operation devoted to custom models and catering to the obsessed and affluent. Kamen is a business, ultimately directed by the bottom line on the ledger sheet. We, as devotees and, to a lesser extent, representing the buying public, can continue to provide valuable input to the R&D folks, but probably won't be swaying the accounting crew much. Kinda like, my opinion and 75 cents will get you a cup of coffee. I can live with that. |
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Location: NJ | What sarcasm??!!
From Memorial Day till Labor Day, all I DO are Hawaiian shirts!! |
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Location: SoCal | The advantage of living in So Cal. From New Year's Day to New Year's Eve all I do are hawaiian shirts. |
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Location: Phoenix AZ | Sorry for the stereotype, but every time I see a hawaiian shirt all I can think of is Magnum PI. Is there a connection here? Paul? |
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Location: SoCal | Yeah, they copied that from me. |
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Location: NJ | cue the theme music....... |
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Location: SoCal | This whole thread has been a good discussion. I've learned that Ovation has stuff in the pipeline and to be patient. I just hope everybody here realizes that change in the market place takes time and effort. Can't be done overnight. |
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Location: Scotland | I do Hawaiian shirts too, right throughout our summer, which is July 1st to around the 9th. |
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Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Using what for your tan..."SPF 3"?! |
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Location: Scotland | No, I just rub myself liberally with instant coffee granules. |
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Location: SoCal | So much for trying to bring this back to guitar talk.... |
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Location: Waterloo, IL | As usual, marketing drives the train. As an example, compare Mickeysoft with Windoze 95 and IBM with OS/2. IBM had a much better product, but did not kow how to market it. Mickeysoft had a product that was inferior, but had a great marketing team. Mickeysoft spent millions in PR building all the hype, IBM spent very little. By the time IBM and its blue suits realized what was going on, it was too little too late. How much does Ovation spend on marketing? Billy Gates was/is good at copying other products, then buying out the competition, with a resulting 90% or greater market share. Ovation had a niche product, and was very good at marketing it at the time. Now everyone else has copied the acoustic/electric idea. The only thing Ovation has that is unique is the sound. That is not enough to get many peoples attention. They see the marketing that flender, flaylor and gibsung use, and go their way. Ovation needs to be driving their marketing team, getting the guitars out into the eye of the players and potential new players more. Ovation is still unique in their looks and sound, even though the others have copied their acoustic/electric idea. Looking through some of the web sites last night and seeing flenders and flaylors for $20,000 to over $50,000 just reinforces the idea that Ovation needs to have at least one very high end model, even if they only sell one or two a year, just to show that they are still a major player in the market.
Chuck |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | Hi Chuck,
You hit the nail on the head... but... I will play "devils advocate" here... and ask why? Keep in mind that I agree with you, and just tossing in the other angle... If they are making enough money, and growing enough to keep on going and growing with the current market and current pace of new releases, why mess with a formula that works just because a few people would like to see some really high-end Ovations. As far as I know, they sell guitars as fast as they can make them. They have a beautiful facility with some highly skilled professionals working at a craft they enjoy and, based on how long some have opted to stay there, must be well taken care of. Why change any of that? |
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Location: Fort Worth, Texas | Damn, you guys. I'm gonna have to come back tomorrow and catch up on this thread.
So, cliff, you rendered that with AutoCAD and Architectural Desktop? 3Dviz? Or what?
Hasta manana
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | Chuck and everybody
I was a big OS-2 fan, and put a copy of it on my $6000 IBM PS70 portable with 6k of memory back in the early days, it was a complete OS-2 with all the bells and whistles that I ran with a dual boot mode and a copy of IBM's just purchased, and impressive, publishing program that integrated everything, graphics, fonts, and had a book feature that was perfect for publishing your own book. All of it died with the Windows emergance that all of us who had any insight in to the weaknesses in the DOS operating system knew would result in years of buggy, crashy, PC operation that has proven to have been experienced. Windows just can't get out from under the horrible limitations in Gate's invention. I also worked with DEC's OS-8 that Gate copied for DOS and it was a loser that had to be programmed in FORTRAN, Gates just changed it to BASIC, which all us serious programmers laughed at until a billion PC's were sold.
Cest La vie.
I watched a TV show of the Chieftan's called The Old Plank Road, and Vince Gill played a mandolin through what looked like a Sennheiser mike that sounded totally acoustic, maybe that's the way to show off acoustic's at a NAMM. Paul T can answqer this.
Bailey |
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Location: NJ | Paul Wag;
Good Eye!! Built with a customized (by us) version of AutoCAD200 utilizing our custom inventory of parts/components, and rendered in 3D Studio VIZ 3 using our own custom materials. |
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Location: Fort Worth, Texas | Cool, Cliff! I'm a MicroStation user/support guy, myself. And I'm not much of a 3d person, allthough that's where I'd like to see all of our stuff go to.
Guitar stuff. It's going to be a long, long time (maybe when all three of my kids are out of the house...) before I could spend the dollars for a high end guitar. Instead of ordering a guitar I bought mine from a small local dealer who had it in stock (Legend 1867) and had it on sale and had lay-away. I looked at some other non-Ovation guitars, as I was shoppin a friend and bandmate just bought a brand new acoustic Fender (from Guitar Center), I'm not sure what model and what price. I played the Legend and liked it and could afford it. I get compliments about it all the time, for the sound, playability and looks. I'm going to start saving for a 12 string Legend or Elite, something good in my proce range. When the time comes and I can't find one locally I'll look up Al...
Anyway, the only marketing I knew of was this web site and the official Ovation web site and the guitars in the store...... |
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Location: Waterloo, IL | I think it is more that I would really like to see Ovation out in front where they belong as far as making guitars. There was a time when Ovation was much more prominent than they are now. I tend to refer to go with the more popular things rather than purchase from the underdog. That is not to say that the underdog is bad, just not as popular for whatever reason. People still look at Ovations as funny looking guitars. However, I prefer the great sound and playability over the round back looks.
Another part is not wanting Ovation to grow stagnant. They have come out with a few new guitars lately. I haven't been able to put my hands on one to see what they sound like. Too few places carry even part of the Ovation line. Out of the four music stores I went to this week, only GC carried Ovations. One other did have a used Collectors on the wall. It had a sign on it that said, "$350, must sell!" When I picked it up the guy behind the counter said that the sign on it was to get one of the other guys worried, just a joke. For $350 I would have bought it, sold my Balladeer, then went looking for a 12 string once again.
Of course the downside to Ovation moving up the ladder is that their older guitars become much more valuable than they are now, making it harder for people to keep them in circulation. I bought used because I was able to get a Balladeer instead of a new Celebrity. Nothing against the Celebrity line, I just prefer to get the best sound I can afford. I keep hoping to find that special bargain. There was an Elite 6868 that went for $280 on eBay last night. Maybe I will get lucky yet on a nice U.S. made 12 string.
Chuck |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | "I would really like to see Ovation out in front where they belong as far as making guitars. "
You know, I guess that sums it up for most of us, and it may not be the Kaman goal. I ran into a similar situation with my fellow Victory mcy riders. In a converstaion with the head of marketing about a celeb I know who was interested in endorsing THEM!!!, he plainly told me that they are already are selling every bike they can make and were not interested in any further advertising or endorsement deals.
I don't think Kaman is getting stale yet, and certainly not to the market they sell too. If sales ever start to fall off, then I bet they are ready for a full-court-press campaign, but for now, why bother when everything they make is being sold and stuff is on order too. I don't know this to be true, but it seems to make some sence.
By the way... I also agree with the sentiments about OS2. It had the right stuff under the hood, and with the same marketing push as Microsoft we would all be better off today. I have had to deal with MAC in the past year, and it's no better than Windows and crashes just as much, it just recovers faster. If my program dies, the fact that I can just restart it (mac), or have to restart the machine(windows) is of no difference to me. If it crashed and I lost my work... my coffee break is plenty of time for the machine to restart.
On a slightly humorous note... my PDA is WIndows based and although it only takes about 10 seconds has to be reset once in awhile, but what got me was my WebTV. I have been using WebTV for 5 years at least. Never turned off the box, I always just turn off the TV. Never had a problem of any sort. When MS took over last year, the DAY they took over, I had to call customer support. Guess what... I had to enter a special code into it to make it....dunt-dunt-dah!!!!! REBOOT!!!! I never laughed so hard... |
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Location: Parkersburg, WV | This thread concerning marketing is interesting. I've always wondered what impact mail order has on the whole process. Maybe its better to cater to a handful of mail order houses selling thousands of units than to market a handful of guitars to a thousand individual shops. I imagine the goal of trying to have Ovations in every guitar shop in every town can't and won't be attempted. It would be curious to find out what percentage of product goes to mail order, what percentage goes to the "brick and mortar shops.
Patsbro |
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Location: Las Cruces, NM | Miles
OS-2 promised true multi-tasking that Unix already had. It was lost in the shuffle and we ended up with round robin assignment by idiots, the comparison is a big super market with one checkout that is assigned according to priority (Windows)(whoever decides priority) vs a supermarket with all the checkouts you need. No wonder any Windows system crashes, it's built in. |
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Location: NJ | I still have a ibm ps/2 50z in my basement. REmember microchannel? it was the next best thing in computer design...guess no one else but ibm thought so.
btw I would love to get my information off of that computer. the monitor crapped out one day and I never looked back. |
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Meeting Of The Devoted
