The more I think about this the more bizarre it seems to me.
My company sells and services two-way radios, mostly Hytera and Kenwood. I see a lot of parallels between us and the Hi-Fi business. Mostly in the fact that the manufactures are blind to how unaware the general user base is to their product unless your Motorola, which I'd say is analogous to a brand like McIntosh. People that are "in the industry" or are avid hobbyists know who the brands are and what's happening. But most of the people we work with are masters of their own business realm. Maintenance and Plant managers don't know what DMR Pseudo trunking is, and they don't care. They just want to push the big button on the side and have their people hear them.
So, for a brand how do you get exposure? You go to a dealer. Unless you already have instant brand recognition like Motorola or McIntosh or B&W or Tesla the general population isn't going to know who you are.
For me even, who has always been interested in Hi-Fi my first set of speakers were B&W. It was the brand I knew. When I wanted to upgrade I went to listen to more B&W speakers. I purchased my 703 because that is what the dealer had. Then when I wanted to upgrade again, B&W wasn't carried by that dealer any more. So I went to a different dealer and listened to B&W, Focal, Dynaudio, Magico, Paradigm, and a bunch of others. I never would have purchased Focal 936 or Dynaudio Special 40 if my dealer didn't have those. Even though every review I read loved them.
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