Slow Times?

[JIMRPT@aol.com]

Randy;
" a company sends undercover "buyers" around passing out $100
bills to a saleperson if they pump their product."

 Yamaha runs the mystery buyer program (over 5 years old) and it is related
to those buyers looking for a 'used piano'  The way the program works is that
the mystery shopper will visit a store and ask to see the used pianos in
stock. If the salesperson shows the mystery shopper used pianos and does not
also make a presentation of the Clavinova as a possible substitute they do
not get the $100. If that particular store does not have any used instruments
in stock and the salesperson shows the "mystery shopper" a Clavinova they get
the $100. If the store does not have any used pianos and the salesperson does
not show the customer the Clavinova they don't get the $100.  Yamaha does not
suggest that any store stress sales of Clavinovas over the sale of pianos,
but only as an alternative solution to a customers  needs.

 To characterize Yamahas "Mystery Buyer" program along with the Payola of the
fifties and sixties, does Yamaha a great disservice and is not even slightly
accurate. I am sure that you just had/have the wrong conception of how the
program is conducted.  Of course, Yamaha wants Yamaha dealers and their sales
force to sell Yamaha products, after all that is why Yamaha is in business.
You keep your product in the consumers eye in the same manner by mentioning
your business at every opportunity and there is nothing wrong with that
either. Should airlines not give frequent flyer miles when you fly on their
airline? That is an incentive just as the "mystery buyer program" is an
incentive to sales persons who sell Yamaha products.
If incentive prgrams are somehow slightly criminal I assume that you do not
use your frequent flyer miles :-).

  As for 'acoustic piano', unfortunately we live in an age of retronyms where
the improvements/spinoffs modify original products faster than we can keep up
with the real names. Pianos, in the eye of the consumer in todays market,
include all keyboard instruments that make sounds like a piano. I do not like
this trend myself and try to never use the term piano, by itself, when I am
speaking of electronic/electric keyboards.

Just my view Randy.
Jim Bryant (FL)