FMIC's Marketing of Jackson

[Greg Crowe]

Folks, I'm worried. Please understand, I'm not FMIC bashing but I'm honestly worried. Today in the mail, I received the latest Musician's Friend catalog. In it I find 41 different Fender guitars spread out over 4 5/8 pages. There are only 3 Jackson's listed and now the Jackson advertisement doesn't even consist of even a 1/2 page. No Rhoads, no Kelly, no King V, no Warrior, no PC-1, no Charvels, nothing but a DXMG and DKMG.

This combined with the loss of long time respected Jackson endorsee Dave Mustaine and the hottest up and coming guitar player in the world, Alexi Laiho, has me worried.

What is to become of Jackson? Just what is the marketing plan?

[diablomozart]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

dunno, still got a wait and see attitude, it does take a lot of time to "settle in" when buying a new company and fmic has their work cut out for them...one thing that i've seen recently that i like is that they are putting up and coming players in their ads...losing mustaine was probably not good, but it did free up funds for them to endorse other playres...maybe they're taking a gamble on one of the up and comers to be the next big thing...i recently contacted them about an endorsement and they were very nice and got back to me with the info in a couple of days...i believe they do honestly care about the line and we just haven't seen the fruits of their labors yet...d.m.

[spencer4hire]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

Something else to think about is how the J/C website has only 1 update since FMIC took over with a price list and new colors and fire fretboard inlays. I also have 2 GC stores by me and neither of them have any USA Jacksons and one only had JS series guitars last time I checked! [img]graemlins/bs.gif[/img]

[Lizard King]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

and I'll add this in for the hell of it: I STILL DONT HAVE MY CHLORINE SOLOIST, aparently because it had a paint flaw and had to be sent back. [img]graemlins/images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

[sevser]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

Well on the flip side, a Fender dealer who always turned their nose up at Jackson have now ordered 15 new Jacksons most of which are USA Select. I think Fender must have something brewing [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] Why would you buy a guitar company just to dissolve it? Especially when Jackson guitars have their own market. I wonder if they have some big name lined up? This would explain the reckless attitude towards the artist. We (Severed Serenity) just got the ol. "Just have your people (Record company)contact our people" crap! Which was obviously just a tactfully way of saying "Who are you and why should WE care"? I think something is brewing for summer Namm. I don't care cuz I like the product and I don't think the quality will change (USA stuff anyway). I didn't start liking Jackson because of who played them or who actually made them, so I'm not about to diss them for those reasons either. As long as they still feel and play like I expect then that all I care. No hurt feelings here! [img]graemlins/toast.gif[/img]

[slayer]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

I don`t get the whole Endorsee thing [img]graemlins/scratchhead.gif[/img] I don`t buy or play guitars for that reason, I buy them and play them for the quality-speaks to me kinda thing. To me, I would rather companies not have Endorsees if it means passing on costs to the consumer, if it doesn`t then Endorsees are ok, they just don`t sell me. I play Jackson USA-Carvin USA and Hamer USA, because I love the way they play and are of high quality [img]graemlins/band.gif[/img] Jack.

[JacksonShredder]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

Well Greg

I will tell you this. FMIC is still working on the new Jackson Line that is how come you don't see any new models in MF
also MF buys what they want to sell the same is true for Guitar Center
i say lets wait till Summer Namm and see what happens
you got to remeber that FMIC is trying to figure out what to do with Jackson and Charvel

i would not get worried.

[ROCKPRO]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

Many people have their rockets fired up and expect quick action. Worrying will serve no useful purpose. Play guitar!

The best will keep getting better, and will become better than ever. Jackson Guitars is in very good company... Think of Fender as a wealthy uncle to the Great Jackson Family.

At this point, and time will tell. You have nothing to fear but fear itself!

[BGWwebguy]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

How long has this ad been around? First time I saw it today in an April 2003 issue....



Brooks

[necrotechno]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

That ad was put together by Fender. The curious thing to me is that Marty Friedman is in it. He was gone way before the ownership change-up. Putting him in their ad is misleading at best.

Dave Mustaine's in it, too, with a VERY custom instrument (doubleneck Y2KV).

[StuTDavis]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

I think it's just way too early to make any judgements on how things are being done. For one company to take on another can take quite a while of adjustment for one. Sure, it's all guitars--it's not like Jackson was bought by Hasbro toys or something--but Jackson itself has a pretty big range of products, and a big name to live up to. I'm sure Fender wants to make sure it does right by Jackson overall. Although there have been companies who have bought other companies simply to crush them out of existence (NVidia buying 3DFX in the computer graphics industry, for instance), Fender knows the Jackson spirit reels in a different market of player than Fender has really ever successfully been able to market their own products to. I don't think it's likely they will ignore that fact and suddenly expect that they can reduce Jackson to nothing and suddenly a bunch of metalheads are going to be playing Strats and Teles. Sure, they will incorporate some of the aspects of the Jackson "mindset" into the Fender line, and probably add a more traditional product or two to the Jackson line, but the two are not interchangable, and they know that.

As far as dropping "big artists", that could be done for a lot of different reasons. Like Dave Mustaine. Who's Mustaine these days? Certainly the Megadeth name doesn't carry the clout it did years ago with the general music listening public. And, face it, a big part of endorsing artists is to try to get NEW players interested in your gear. Once you're a certain age, a certain maturity, and have played for a certain number of years, does anyone really give a crap about what artists a company endorses? How many of you are really snagged by that crapola--"buy this product because so-and-so is pictured here with one"?? I know I'm not. Informed, mature people buy products based on what they have tried and found that they like and what they can afford. Sure, it can still feel kinda cool to have some "signature series" USA Jackson...but, come on, we all know it's nothing so much more special or higher quality than any "non-sig" USA Jackson, right? So what's the problem? Endorsees are for the kiddes to look at and go oooh and aahh, don't let that issue bug you so much.

Catalog entries, I'm almost positive, are very strongly a decision left up to the seller, with probably some but not complete enforcement by the companies whose products they carry. Is Fender likely to want to call yelling and screaming at Musician's Friend and threaten to not have them carry their product anymore, because they didn't advertise "enough Jacksons"? I think maybe they might call and say "hey we wish you would put more Jacksons in there", if anything, but doubt they can really or would really do much about it. Sure, Musician's Friend has a huge interest in keeping Fender as a company they can market for, but Fender has just as much (if not more) interest in not upsetting Musician's Friend's apple cart as a vendor for their products. Face it, if MF gets completely pissed off at Fender, they have other products they can promote...Fender would probably lose BOTH MF and Guitar Center in the process of pissing one of them off, and that would be a HUUUUUUGE mistake.

Just my thoughts...don't get your panties in a wad too fast on these things... [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[IrfaanSE801]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

Well, I have seen more ads (the one posted) in magazines advertising Jackson than I've ever seen before. Musiciansfriend have also never really showed a USA select Jackson from what I remember. It's always been mostly the Japanese line models. I do see what your saying though, no RR3 even. Although I do worry about the direction Jackson is going in, I'm just gonna let it ride out and see what happens.

Wise man once said: It's always darkest before the light"...Or something like that. Let's hope he's right....

[xenophobe]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

nVidia didn't buy 3DFX to crush them. 3Dfx was already pretty much a dead company, with updates being less and less useful, their hardware not keeping pace with other's improvements, and sales halting to a trickle. nVidia bought 3Dfx so they could end all the patent disputes, and gain all of 3Dfx's intellectual property.

Judging what's happening with Jackson by looking in the latest MF catalog isn't really indicitave of what's GOING to happen.

Look at the brits, they're finally getting USA Select stuff at decent prices... looks like fender is being busy setting up dealers right now... musicians friend will soon follow I bet...

[sevser]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

Originally posted by necrotechno:
That ad was put together by Fender. The curious thing to me is that Marty Friedman is in it. He was gone way before the ownership change-up. Putting him in their ad is misleading at best.

Dave Mustaine's in it, too, with a VERY custom instrument (doubleneck Y2KV).

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, Fender told us that this was put together by Kev. I know the Scottsdale AZ address is on there but Kev did it....Or so says Fender anyhow.

[StuTDavis]

Re: FMIC\'s Marketing of Jackson

Oh so they ARE keeping the 3DFX line going, I didn't know that. I thought for sure they bought their competitor for their own selfish reasons of video card industry domination, but now I know it was an act of benevolence, to help them keep the company and its workers in business, just like Microsoft does. Thanks for the info! [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]