----- Original Message ----- From: "Kendall Ross Bean" <kenbean at pacbell.net> To: <caut at ptg.org> Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 4:29 PM Subject: [CAUT] "All Steinway" -What does it really mean... > Is Steinway great truly because of merit, or just marketing? Or is it a > sort > of slippery combination of both. -You tell me. There is one intangible that is being left out of this discussion. We must remember that Steinway has been a stable, profitable company longer than any other company in this discussion. It has been there when others have folded, and it was there, at least in the minds and perception of Americans, long before any of the other manufacturers being mentioned entered the American piano market. Longevity is a large part of reliability, at least in the minds of consumers. This lends more to merit than to marketing. But, there is nothing wrong with good marketing, too. Toyota and the other Japanese automobile companies have done a superb job of making their product seem superior to American cars, when they really haven't been for at least the last 15, perhaps as many as 20 years. There was that short period in the 1970s and early 80s where they brought in cheaper, more fuel efficient automobiles and created the myth that that meant superior. Yamaha and Kawai, likewise have capitalized on similar untruths in marketing, promoting their bottom of the line instruments as superior to Steinway, Baldwin etc., using the simple marketing strategy that they are more "consistent" (factory finished), irrespective of the reality that the life expectancy is a fraction of those they are competing against. So, this argument goes both ways. Jeff Tanner
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