Quote Originally Posted by Ajani
I'm sure B&W and Paradigm can afford to do a few ads... I'm not talking about buying a 2 minute slot in the middle of the Superbowl...
Don't be so sure of that. Bose's revenue is probably multiples greater than B&W and Paradigm. While both of those companies are among the largest specialty speaker manufacturers, the specialty speaker segment as a whole represents a tiny industry. Given that both B&W and Paradigm are vertically integrated companies that heavily invest in R&D and manufacturing, I would guess that they would rather invest in their plants and products than divert funds to TV ads.

The other aspect to this is the name recognition. Bose is very easy to find because they distribute to mass merchandise stores. A TV ad works for them because consumers already know the brand and see the products everywhere. B&W and Paradigm have chosen to build their brand equity by selling only through specialty stores. They can go on TV, but unless they do this pervasively and keep up the campaign over the course of years, no one will care much for some unknown company doing an infomercial selling an expensive product.

Quote Originally Posted by Ajani
Instead of just having ADs in the usual Stereophile, Absolute Sound etc.. buy a few spots in mags normal people read... It's not complicated... if they can afford ads in audio mags, then they can afford to cut back a little on those mags and try more mainstream ones...
Problem here is would they rather take a shotgun approach at the mass market, or would they rather do a targeted approach to the specialty market? What approach gives them a higher rate of return on investment? The danger to going mass market is the dilution of product quality, and alienating your base market and dealer network. Paradigm and B&W operate their own plants (Paradigm goes as far as manufacturing its own drivers, crossovers, and active amps), but if a TV campaign creates a huge spike in demand, can they ramp up production while maintaining their product quality? Or do they bite the bullet and start outsourcing to China?

JBL showed the industry exactly how not to make a mass market transition when they began selling their products in discount stores and other mass merchandisers. They gained a foothold in big box stores, but they got dropped by nearly all of their specialty dealers in the process and pissed away their reputation in the process (once upon a time, a segment of the audiophile market actually spoke well of JBL).