Sort of bolstering Tom comments, RMC does have a fair amount of narrow
gauge content. Although I don't have the issue in front of me, I don't
recall much mention of our narrow minded suppliers--they probably
outnumber us wide scalers. Again PBL supplied 2-3 individual ads, one
being full page. I don't think Uncle Bill will be too happy 'bout that.
Pardon another 'war' story, but if your unsure of how people will react
to advertising, marketing and even the color of paint on a house.
Companies will hire folks to go to malls, stores, festivals and have
people taste (Pepsi/Coke), give opinions (Obama/Trump), & state feelings
(cool blue/hot pink). I think if we were serious about marketing our
scale we would gather a few cute girls in little T shirts, place them in
hobby shops that don't sell S and get some opinions after showing
several ideas. How people answer questions of perception is very
important--is the perception that S is only hi-rail AF, or is the
scratch builders scale, or is just a bunch of pot-bellied talkers on the
internet? Does the average guy in the hobby shop on Saturday morning
know about Smoky Valley, does he know DesPlains is making a SD-45, does
anybody realize that S scale is actually prototype 4' 8 1/2 " while the
other scales just found a reasonable size! Why did I mention the cute
girls in T shirts--well you have to get their attention first--better
than those two old gray hair guys in the Lionel video yesterday and yes,
I answer to "dirty old man" too!
I was hired by such a company over a lawsuit involving design. The
folks at Igloo designed a little cooler called the Playmate which I'm
sure many are familiar with. It wasn't long before several similar's
were being sold by competitors. I photographed a typical Coke bottle
with the logo removed, I photographed the Legg's pantyhose container
without the logo and several other examples of familiar but unique
designs. People were sent to the malls with my photos where they were
asked to identify the product without the logos--face it nobody, unless
you lived under a rock, missed the names even without the logos painted
on. The Igloo Playmates shape was unique and they won the suit. How
those random people answered those photo based questions was worth some
really big bucks and the future of several companies.
We can't attack a market until we know what the market will accept and
will it take two or three approaches (quite likely) like the Geico
ads--the little green Gecko and the spokesman with the slick hair both
selling the same thing using humor.
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
>
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> Yes, both of their ads were nice, as one would expect. JWDPremium also
> had
> two separate ads.
>
> The over-all effect suffers though from what I'll call the "NASG
> Syndrome,"
> the philosophy that scale modelling and tin-plate collecting are equally
> valid and very similar pursuits. Of course they are, from a broader
> pespective. But RMC is a SCALE model publication. It really should have
> taken the pro-scale position. I wouldn't expect to read an S gauge
> article
> in Classic Toy Trains that went into the pros and cons of code 110 vs
> code
> 125 wheels. This article could have touched on things like that.
> Today's S
> scaler really doesn't need to know that AF had a "latch-type coupler"
> from
> 1946 to 1950.
>
> I counted 10 cars & locos in ads and other pictures with AF-size knuckle
> couplers, and one with the link or latch couplers.
>
> But I think we're safe from another thread going on and on about this RMC
> pull-out by the fact that few of us subscribe to RMC.
>
> Tom Hawley -- Lansing Michigan
>
>
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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