Klarinet Archive - Posting 000402.txt from 1999/11

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] subject: [kl] Plastic Horns
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 23:50:56 -0500

On Wed, 10 Nov 1999, Bill Hausmann wrote:

> The major companies are not going to destroy their reputations with
> inferior products like that (UMI and their Artley clarinets excepted).

I wish I were as confident of this. There are already plenty of examples
of companies destroying their reputations by trying to save a few pennies
here and there, doing so by cost-cutting measures of varying degrees of
intelligence or stupidity, and in the process reducing the quality of the
product to the extent that they ultimately destroy their former
reputation.

For example, think of the move by Conn from Elkhart, Indiana to
Nogales, Mexico. In Elkhart, there was a cadre of experienced and expert
workers. The move was made in an attempt to have the instruments built by
workers who they could hire for a fraction of what they paid to American
workers. The result? The quality of their instruments went so far down
that they became a laughing stock among musicians, their potential
purchasers. This move had nothing to do with a desire to provide a better
quality product. It was clearly an attempt to improve the profit margin.
In other words, it was driven by the dollar - or some might say, by greed.

Consider also the fact that Selmer no longer markets instruments under the
Bundy name. They are now called "Selmer model 100" or something similar.
Bundy had become associated in the minds of so many musicians with
inferior quality and poor value that they felt it necessary to do away
with the name. Notice that their response was not to improve the quality.
The change was purely a marketing ploy.

It can happen in all businesses and industries. Notice in your Sunday
newspaper that K-Mart is in the process of changing their name to "Big K,"
a trade name formerly used by one of their competitors. Why would they
want to do this? Because the K-Mart name had been the punch line of
thousands of jokes, and was synonymous with cheapness and poor quality.
Note again that the response was not to improve quality, but to try to
brainwash the public into forgetting the associations of the K-Mart name.

I realize that this may seem too cynical. I hope I will be proven wrong.

Ed Lacy
el2@-----.edu

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