[CAUT] "All Steinway" -What does it really mean...

[Jeff Tanner]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kendall Ross Bean" <kenbean at pacbell.net>
To: <caut at ptg.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 4:29 PM
Subject: [CAUT] "All Steinway" -What does it really mean...


> Is Steinway great truly because of merit, or just marketing? Or is it a 
> sort
> of slippery combination of both. -You tell me.

There is one intangible that is being left out of this discussion.  We must 
remember that Steinway has been a stable, profitable company longer than any 
other company in this discussion. It has been there when others have folded, 
and it was there, at least in the minds and perception of Americans, long 
before any of the other manufacturers being mentioned entered the American 
piano market.

Longevity is a large part of reliability, at least in the minds of 
consumers. This lends more to merit than to marketing.

But, there is nothing wrong with good marketing, too.  Toyota and the other 
Japanese automobile companies have done a superb job of making their product 
seem superior to American cars, when they really haven't been for at least 
the last 15, perhaps as many as 20 years.  There was that short period in 
the 1970s and early 80s where they brought in cheaper, more fuel efficient 
automobiles and created the myth that that meant superior.  Yamaha and 
Kawai, likewise have capitalized on similar untruths in marketing, promoting 
their bottom of the line instruments as superior to Steinway, Baldwin etc., 
using the simple marketing strategy that they are more "consistent" (factory 
finished), irrespective of the reality that the life expectancy is a 
fraction of those they are competing against.

So, this argument goes both ways.
Jeff Tanner