Hi Scott.... You make some good points. Truly, you do.
However, I do not think we want to ask Lionel what their marketing plans are. That is obviously confidential information. What next year's catalog will contain is not what we should be concerned about. Those decisions are already made. Nor are we looking for company-private information of any kind. I would like to think/hope that Lionel wants to know what we want to purchase in the future -- at least in terms of features. And, what we do not want to purchase, as well. What features are important to us? Which features do we remove and throw away? All kinds of things ranging from marketing communication (scale wheels or no scale wheels, who knows?) to protoptype preferences (do only articulateds sell well?) to engineering design characteristics (to enable scale conversions or not?) are topics that ought to be of interest to the decision makers at Lionel. Finding someone at Lionel to discuss these kinds of issues with is in our own best interests. Like you, I am amazed at how difficult this is proving to be. It is almost surreal. RRM, AM, SMMW, PBL, SHS, etc., etc. all have (or had) names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, etc. which make it easy to contact the decision maker. Fred Rouse can only do so much in his well-equipped machine shop. He can only work with the products AFTER they are delivered. I would like to influence the nature of products BEFORE they are built. There has to be a way to do that -- somehow. Talking to my local friendly 3-rail O gauge dealer does not strike me as a great way to reach the AF/S new product decision maker. That approach reminds me of the Zephyr project produced by RRM back in the good olde daze when Jim Kindraka was still there. Remember when Sunset Models announced their S Zephyr? They did not get enough advance reservations and cancelled the project. Then RRM announces a more expensive Zephyr and it sells out. Why the difference? RRM spoke directly with S customers. Sunset spoke with their O gauge dealers and were told that "we don't get many inquiries for S Zephyrs". I wonder why the O gauge dealers never got any requests for an S scale product. Anyone want to hazard a guess? Nothing beats direct consumer-to-decision maker communication. Intermediaries are always filter and modify the message one way or another. I don't think we should give up yet. We can do better. Let's keep trying. "S"incerely.....Ed Loizeaux --- In [email protected], "Scott" wrote: > > Who to contact at Lionel has been bandied about for months. I started to > wonder why so looked into it myself. This little disclaimer at the bottom of > their contact list explains it rather well..."Please understand that the > above groups are not able to answer "product marketing" questions. They > cannot discuss product marketing issues such as when a product, not yet in a > Lionel catalog, will be offered, etc. Customer Service individuals do not > know the answers to these types of marketing questions. Questions that > concern Lionel marketing of product, etc. are "company private" issues and > are not shared with individuals outside the executive and marketing areas of > the company." > There are undoubtedly dozens and dozens of list members who have tried to > contact Lionel just as I have but have not bothered to share their frustrated > attempts because it doesn't really help get us anywhere. So why then am I > sharing mine? Because I think this disclaimer may not be general knowledge. > Seems like our choices are relatively limited. > 1. Someone on the list who personally knows either an executive or > marketing person, contacts them as a duly appointed representative of this > list with a two-fold petition outlining our basic scale needs as well as > wants. (Every company does product research, our aim should be to assist them > with this useful tool for their product research team) > 2. Prayer. > 3. If we have no one on the list or in S scale in general who knows an > executive or marketing team member, I honestly can't think of any other > viable options...can anyone else? > > For what its worth... > Scott Huston, Las Vegas Nevada > ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
