Kirk, the difference is that most of those big food brands are still big. The electronics examples are brands that lost their relevance years ago, which is how their names ended up becoming nothing more than licensable intellectual property.
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Older Audiences & Advertiser Appeal (For All Markets)
- Thread starter Kelly A
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If you're really old, you might remember Dumont, Farnsworth, and Hallicrafters TVs. They're all before my time, and all three are more famous for other ventures (Failed TV network, invention of electronic TV, and ham and defense equipment, respectively).
Hallicrafters hung on as an amateur radio brand into at least the late '70s, but the Japanese manufacturers (Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood) quickly came to dominate the sector.
Northrop bought out Hallicrafters in 1966 and moved the main plant from Chicago to Rolling Meadows a few years later. They killed off all non-military product lines in 1973, selling off the Hallicrafters brand and becoming Northrop's Defense Systems Division at that time. Full disclosure: I worked there between 1978 and 1989. I'm not sure what it's called now, as Northrop-Grumman, but it's still there.
And nearly all the consumer goods brands are made by the same company... even if that company has become a division of a larger food conglomerate.
My first good communications receiver, around 1959, was a Hallicrafters SX-99. Not the best, but a good value for its price.
A few years later, Hallicrafters had not brought out anything better at the "top of the line" so I moved to a Hammarlund H!-180, later replaced with a Collins R-390A. By the mid-60, the Hallicrafters receivers were no longer at or near the top of the line. However, in about 1965 I bought several Halliicrafters fixed frequency FM receivers for the transmitter end of my station's STLs, and they were great radios!
I had the Hammarlund HQ-170, originally for use with a Heathkit CW transmitter when I got my novice ticket, but I never even got an antenna up and only operated from the high school club station, letting my license expire. I sold the Heathkit but hung on to the HQ-170 for many more years of listening. Great old radio. In retrospect, getting a ham license right around my 17th birthday probably wasn't a great idea -- far too many more, ummm, stimulating activities going on from ages 17 to 19 to leave any time for ham radio.
My first transceiver was a Heathkit (CW only), then graduated to Drake twins (T4XB/R4B) (with a plant in Miamisburg, Ohio. I went from there to a Yaesu 757GX which also had a full coverage receiver. It seemed the Drake SPR-4 was very popular with DXers in the 70s.
I had an SPR-4 in the 70's in addition to the 50 lb R-390. I used it when I'd rent a beachfront house in Boquerón or Guanica or Cabo Rojo or Humacao for vacations away from San Juan and without a mountain range blocking the south for low angle AM signals.
My Novice rig (1970-71) was a Heathkit DX-60B paired with a Hallicrafters S-120A, probably THE worst shortwave receiver ever made. It was the final successor to the S-38 line, although it was manufactured by Panasonic in Japan and sold under several brand names, including Midland and Lafayette. A decent broadcast receiver, but horrible for ham radio -- no selectivity. A 3 transistor regenerative receiver worked better.
Fortunately, I was able to buy a 1959-vintage Hammarlund HQ-145 after a couple months. I still have the thing, although I don't dare plug it in anymore due to the ancient electrolytic caps and power transformer.
The R390's were our MF/HF receivers on my early 60's destroyer. Never had an issue with either of them the 3 years I was on that ship - which was remarkable since they were never turned off and continued to work with over 10,000 rounds of 5" being fired over the last two years in Viet Nam.
RCA? Magnavox? No one is looking to buy those names. And yeah, there are store brands that may be the modern day semi-equivalents of what those became, but they’re non-entities.
Philco I remember only from my college job at another dead brand, Kmart. At the time, I don’t know who held the name license, but even I knew it was just a nameplate with no attachment to what was already a dead brand for all practical purposes. But the then-old customers didn’t all realize it. It was a junky loss-leader line, the types we’d stack up and sell out of for Black Friday because they were cheap as dirt. Same quality, too.
I have a few recent Sony audio products around the house. A simple compact Bluetooth speaker, a pair of headphones for the gym, that kind of thing. They serve their purpose for what they need to be. But a TV? Good lord, I can’t remember my last Sony TV.
Philco I remember only from my college job at another dead brand, Kmart. At the time, I don’t know who held the name license, but even I knew it was just a nameplate with no attachment to what was already a dead brand for all practical purposes. But the then-old customers didn’t all realize it. It was a junky loss-leader line, the types we’d stack up and sell out of for Black Friday because they were cheap as dirt. Same quality, too.
I have a few recent Sony audio products around the house. A simple compact Bluetooth speaker, a pair of headphones for the gym, that kind of thing. They serve their purpose for what they need to be. But a TV? Good lord, I can’t remember my last Sony TV.
And who could forget Muntz.
I guess this could be called "brand dilution":
In this case, there's no "brand" of low end TV, just a basic LCD TV building block with the brand name slapped on at the last minute.
I think there's a marketing opportunity in pointing out that old brand names may not be what they seem to be (qualitywise).
Kirk Bayne
In this case, there's no "brand" of low end TV, just a basic LCD TV building block with the brand name slapped on at the last minute.
I think there's a marketing opportunity in pointing out that old brand names may not be what they seem to be (qualitywise).
Kirk Bayne
Again, to whom?I guess this could be called "brand dilution":
In this case, there's no "brand" of low end TV, just a basic LCD TV building block with the brand name slapped on at the last minute.
I think there's a marketing opportunity in pointing out that old brand names may not be what they seem to be (qualitywise).
Kirk Bayne
These brands that haven't been competitive in 20+ years don't sell on their prior reputations, they sell on price. About the only currently popular brand that competes at that price point is TCL---and given that your post suggests they do the same thing, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot.
While it's true that "brand recognition" may not be what it once was, there can, however, sometimes be differences between brands that make those with a bit of a higher price point worth it. When we bought our current LED flat screen, for instance, we noted the cheaper ones didn't have enough HDMI inputs for our needs. Some flat screens (usually the known brand name ones) had really good sound out of the box, while some other brands (again, usually the lower end ones) would've required the purchase of a sound bar and/or other peripherals to make it sound as good - especially the low end range which can be absent on a lot of flat screens.I guess this could be called "brand dilution":
In this case, there's no "brand" of low end TV, just a basic LCD TV building block with the brand name slapped on at the last minute.
I think there's a marketing opportunity in pointing out that old brand names may not be what they seem to be (qualitywise).
Kirk Bayne
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Take the GM bankruptcy for example, the GM of decades was renamed and the newly created car co. took the name GM as soon as the old co. let it go - from a legal POV GM no longer exists.
GE sold their appliance division ~10 years ago, the new owner is allowed to use the GE logo, but it isn't really GE.
In my case, I use brand names as a starting point for researching a product/service purchase (I know that Philips sold their CE division about 10 years ago and the new owner shut it down, but I have been happy with CE products marketed by Funai [current licensee of the Philips name]).
I suspect this brand name shuffling takes place in the profession/industrial market too.
I guess I'm saying that, to try to change the buying habits of older people, repeatedly inform them that brand loyalty should be questioned.
Regarding low end TVs, I think the brands just want something to offer at a certain price point - I don't know why they don't just let Walmart have the very low end with their ONN brand [which I find to be adequate for the few CE ONN branded products I've purchased].
Kirk Bayne
GE sold their appliance division ~10 years ago, the new owner is allowed to use the GE logo, but it isn't really GE.
In my case, I use brand names as a starting point for researching a product/service purchase (I know that Philips sold their CE division about 10 years ago and the new owner shut it down, but I have been happy with CE products marketed by Funai [current licensee of the Philips name]).
I suspect this brand name shuffling takes place in the profession/industrial market too.
I guess I'm saying that, to try to change the buying habits of older people, repeatedly inform them that brand loyalty should be questioned.
Regarding low end TVs, I think the brands just want something to offer at a certain price point - I don't know why they don't just let Walmart have the very low end with their ONN brand [which I find to be adequate for the few CE ONN branded products I've purchased].
Kirk Bayne
Again, we'll ask just how (i.e. what medium) would there be to inform the public that these brands aren't the same ones you know?
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