Slate article on Fender's upcoming IPO

[plaidbeer]

I am surprised that more female guitarists don't have signature models. Chrissie Hynde should have a sig Tele and Carrie Brownstein should have a sig Epi G-400/Gibson SG.

[NickS]

...and Tina Weymouth should have a signature Swinger

[jcyphe]

Then again, I'm 5'1" with skinny hands. A lot of women aren't, so for Fender to market smaller, lighter-weight guitars to "women," as a whole, seems reductive and condescending--not much better than just painting them pink.

Unfortunately, I don't think "marketing to women" is going to be enough, because while building electric guitars that appeal to (a relatively small existing group of) female players is one thing, getting larger numbers of women in the door of the music store to start with is quite another. For that to happen, I think there needs to be a corresponding change in the culture of popular music.

Your entire post is filled with very valid points. Some marketing can be condescending and tries to pander to gender differences that don't really exist but good marketing is informative and inclusive. I think that is the challenge these companies face, inclusion that says "pick up this guitar" is possible in an ad campaign.

We made fun of a very stupid Fender ad a few months back for an "upscale product" that basically looked like a dude in a hotel room with a hooker, at best the woman in the ad was totally objectified. For many young men, girls and guitars just go together as things they "want" and as much as we can get into what that means, it probably won't change. So Fender and Gibson can start by doing something as simple as advertising in outlets more likely to be read or seen by teenage girls, with ads better targeted for those different demographics, and they have to make a commitment to stick with it, their future probably depends on it.

[ekwatts]

It's funny because everyone says that and no one actually has a study to back it up. According to NPR, This American Life, US labor isn't, actually that much more expensive after paying shipping, taxes, and other fees involved I'm international business. According to them, it's really more about being able to find tons of people willing to work and work harder than we're really willing to work.

All that said, they also didn't say how they came to these conclusions.

So it's basically not fact.

Labour is much cheaper abroad. It's why it's done this way and globalisation has done so well for developed nations. Exploiting places without minimum wages, unions etc etc is cheap. I'd much prefer it done at home but it's a pipe dream at Squier prices.

All I'm saying is that I'd be really curious as to how much cheaper it is. Gibson (even if it was crappy quality) has been releasing guitars that are made in America for virtually the same price. All I'm saying is that the price of labor isn't exactly transparent.

US productivity has risen year on year since WWII, without fail. At the same time, wages basically stagnated in the 70s and never recovered. Americans are being paid the same as they did in the 1970s while producing far more than they ever did back then. This is true of the UK as well. Lazy Americans are a myth used to justify these lower wages and the higher profit margins sought by businesses by taking their production abroad. And the higher profit margins are required to fund more expansive R&D. Take Apple; an iPad manufactured by Americans would end up costing the end user around 5-10 times as much as they do (which is already overpriced because it's Apple) in order to make the same profits. And then the price would have to be raised even further because the higher price would mean fewer people being interested, which would also entail an even more intensive advertising campaign with a larger budget, necessitating a higher price for the same profits.... An iPad would end up costing in the region of $5000 or something ridiculous like that (just pulled that figure out of my ass to illustrate my point).

So I have no real problem with businesses taking their production abroad. It allows me to spend much less money to get my hands on a shiny masturbation aid with no buttons and wipe-clean screen for far less money than it would cost otherwise. At the same time, I think maybe the fundamental root of the problem is not that we all expect to get paid more money to do less work. That's a rightwing nonsense and totally and utterly counterfactual. The truth is that CEOs and operating costs (let's call it what it is; business bureaucracy) have soaked up all of that money that should have been going to the rest of us to remunerate our ever-rising productivity.