Do Fender really want to kill off Jackson?

[Flatpicker]

Charvel won't be sold. It took Fender a good while and some trial and error, but they realized the potential of Charvel very well. I'd have to give them a B+ or possibly even an A if you consider that they'll probably be consistent like FMIC always is, so the road that branding is going down looks great.

Jackson.. yeah, it would be difficult for Fender to sell off the brand due to their integration at Corona. If they sold it, there's not really a full company there to support all the operations and who knows how much shared or FMIC specific property is lent or leased to Jackson. But they could sell it and someone else could create a new company around the IP... could probably fit all the cnc programs on a couple of DVDs, and off you go. lol

But yeah, while FMIC has done great for Charvel, Jackson hasn't done so well on so many levels. Yeah, Jackson is still here with us, but it really looks like all they care about is the backlog of cusoms and running custom selects. The imports are hardly seen at any shop except for the beginner level guitars in the used junkpile. Jackson exists despite FMICs horrible mismanagement of Jackson.

With Jackson, I had always figured it was budgetary.
I think J/C share the same budget at FMIC, because if you watch the trend, neither get the marketing push at the same time.

The few new Jackson imports I have tried, have been solid. But there seem to be fewer dealers around. I do want to get my hands on a DK2M at some point. But it'll have to special ordered due to limited availability.

[xenophobe]

Well they did try the Jenna push, which was lame and a total failure... they're probably still selling new old stock... they were still selling new old stock a few years ago so you know that whole production run was basically warehoused in embarassment.

So it's not like FMIC gave it a few decent tries along the way, but the Jackson web page is basically a zombie clone site with almost no activity ever since Jackson was purchased. It's like there is little to no corporate interest in the branding anywhere in the corp. Sales and ordering are all FMIC and Fender product specific employees and Jackson duties are just given to them. The whole front office of what we knew as Jackson is gone. The color and paint schemes are mostly gone too... Almost all Fender paint codes now. And they've changed and modernized the production process and have split Custom and USA Select lines. So there aren't really a whole lot of specific Charvel and Jackson employees when you actually think about it. They'll always be secondary brands to FMIC employees and it reflects in almost every way you look at it.

[bigmateo]

If Fender had any brains, they would re-release the Charvel Model Series, made at their best import plant. They would need to be super high quality like the originals. I mean seriously Fender, those 1986-1988 Model Series guitar sold by the millions ! You can't go into a pawn shop today without seeing 1 or 2. They are still loved and highly regarded. Get rid of the Desolation garbage and build some quality Model Series guitars.

I would love to see a new Model series Charvel. Or at least see a pointy head on them at some point again.

As long as were dreaming, I would love to see Charvel come back with the more square contoured shape(not dinky shaped) for their pro mods, like the model series had. My one complaint about the pro mods is it just uses a strat body with the classic strat contours on them. I like that slightly more square shape they used to have. I can see why they don't though, it would have probably cost too much to retool the plants though. It's easier and cheaper just to use a Fender body.

Went a little off topic there, sorry.

[markD]

Poor Fender!! I remember when the only headstocks available were the pointy and the "sears". EVERYONE wanted a strathead Charvel. As was said a few posts back, now there are stratheads, and people want pointies!!!!! Talk about NEVER being able to satisfy.....

The Model series has been brought up a few times. Those guitars are available all over the place in the used market. Instead of asking Fender to reissue something that pissed people off when originally issued, why not hit the GC used page (or a pawn shop) and just buy a used one?

[j2379]

Poor Fender!! I remember when the only headstocks available were the pointy and the "sears". EVERYONE wanted a strathead Charvel. As was said a few posts back, now there are stratheads, and people want pointies!!!!! Talk about NEVER being able to satisfy.....

hahaha, i like my pointies pointy and my strats, strat'd, dinkys either way. was never a fan of stratheads on stars or explorers.

[algeriet]

All I think is that Jackson should be handled a little bit more like ESP. Be more hip to the game. Their social networking skills are terrible, anyone seen the nasty photos on the Jackson/Charvel instagram pages? Get someone who understands lighting to take your pictures, jeez!
With ESP its like Alexi Laiho this, Alexi Laiho that, but over at Jackson we have Corey Baliou (spelling?) and then there's nothing. They're not even pushing him, making videos and interviews etc. Its all half-assed. In order to sell they need good product firstly, and secondly they need people with influence to be rocking said product. Check out ESP's webpage and its filled with new cool videos of their artist rooster, all the guitars and stuff whereas the Jackson website is kinda empty.
I believe a fifteen year old kid today who listens to Trivium or Lamb of God decides to go into the website for reassurance that the brand is the $h!t when suddenly met by a ghost town.

[markD]

hahaha, i like my pointies pointy and my strats, strat'd, dinkys either way. was never a fan of stratheads on stars or explorers.

I agree on ALL points!

[Flatpicker]

All I think is that Jackson should be handled a little bit more like ESP. Be more hip to the game. Their social networking skills are terrible, anyone seen the nasty photos on the Jackson/Charvel instagram pages? Get someone who understands lighting to take your pictures, jeez!
With ESP its like Alexi Laiho this, Alexi Laiho that, but over at Jackson we have Corey Baliou (spelling?) and then there's nothing. They're not even pushing him, making videos and interviews etc. Its all half-assed. In order to sell they need good product firstly, and secondly they need people with influence to be rocking said product. Check out ESP's webpage and its filled with new cool videos of their artist rooster, all the guitars and stuff whereas the Jackson website is kinda empty.
I believe a fifteen year old kid today who listens to Trivium or Lamb of God decides to go into the website for reassurance that the brand is the $h!t when suddenly met by a ghost town.

Actually, Jackson has moved to varied endorsers. MM is pretty popular at this time.

So they have Beaulieu, Mansoor, Broderick, Collins, Demmel, Ellefson, Ian, Smith, Beattie, Morton.

That's a pretty good stable, even if some of them are riding on their backcatalog.

[algeriet]

Definitely great so far, but you never ever see the actual guitars or hear about the brand and the artist as far as ESP takes it.
Its like Jackson created the Soloist yet ESP are a bigger name with among others Jackson designs such as the Mirage/Horizon and the SV etc. Also the whole "bloodline" fest is just sad. Eighties/nineties catalogues had so many funky vibes but now its all "we're evil metalheads".

[xenophobe]

All I think is that Jackson should be handled a little bit more like ESP.

Over the past 20 years, ESP has made a lot of good business decisions... as opposed to Jackson which has made a lot of bad business decisions. It's sad though, our last market crash pretty much made ESP reorganize and close a few of their small custom shops a year a couple years ago. Jackson didn't seem to get hit as hard. I think because much of ESP's high end sales were very fanboi-ish and when the market here dropped, those sales plummeted. Jackson doesn't really have much of a fanboi following, just old die hard brand loyalists.

ESP has great social content because the company ESP has motivation for marketing it's primary brand. Like I touched on a few posts above, Jackson isn't a brand handled like a primary brand by it's company like it used to be before FMIC purchased them. ESP Customs are what ESP prides itself in. Jackson Customs aren't the pride of FMIC. Masterbuilt Fenders are the high-end in the FMIC lineup.

ESP did right by their brand... they recently took away ESP branding from guitars that used to have it. If you see ESP logo on a guitar, you automatically know it's their high end. And Jackson has done nothing but water down it's brand name since the 90's and I think it's hurt more than it has helped.

[PowerTube]

Another factor is that shred hasn't been popular in the mainstream for quite some time. I still love it and so do most of us here, but it doesn't have the impact it did in the 80's. For a few years, everyone demanded humbuckers, locking trems, pointy headstocks, etc.... Then when nu-metal took over in the 90's, Ibanez, ESP, and PRS gained a greater foothold than Jackson. Jacksons and Charvels are still considered, in large part, to be "shred" guitars.

Trends come and go, and if Fender hangs on to Jackson they'll someday be very happy that they did.

[xenophobe]

I don't really consider Jackson to be a shredder guitar in specific... more just a relic of 80's and 90's heavy/glam/thrash metal.

FMIC could use Jackson to heavily go after death metal... there are numerous signed death metal, black metal and other metal fusion bands that use Jackson and don't appear to be endorsed by them. They almost always get swallowed up by ESP, because even their entry level endorsement involves free guitars.

[neilli]

Yeah, Jackson is still here with us, but it really looks like all they care about is the backlog of cusoms and running custom selects. The imports are hardly seen at any shop except for the beginner level guitars in the used junkpile.

See, I'd say the reverse Mike - I agree that Custom Select is a focus, but only over 'proper' CS guitars and USA Select. To me it feels that overall, imports are where their attention lies, especially when you look at the big stores and the smaller, but non JC focused stores, which lets face it are the vast majority.

[j2379]

I like the selects a lot. I can't justify a full blown CS and the non recess Floyd and pup config options is great. And imports always sell much better than USA. $ I know I couldn't afford USAs as a kid. Horray for growing up w model series guitars.

[xenophobe]

See, I'd say the reverse Mike - I agree that Custom Select is a focus, but only over 'proper' CS guitars and USA Select. To me it feels that overall, imports are where their attention lies, especially when you look at the big stores and the smaller, but non JC focused stores, which lets face it are the vast majority.

The only new imports I've seen lately are the AS Jacksons. I haven't seen any of the higher end import Jacksons stocked in a store in ages. I bought a Charvel Desolation new a while back only because the Fender rep begged the store to take them and left them on consignment. If you're lucky GC will have like, one used USA Select and a handful of used Junk Series on the bargain wall.

I think they rely on MF or some other larger outlets to blow out imports online rather than having local dealers stock anything.