Quote:
Originally Posted by djcxxx
What you are asking is whether or not too many products to fill every market niche dilutes the brand in quality and exclusivity. Follow BMW, Mercedes Benz, and now Porsche over the last 15-20 years and your answer about McIntosh will be based upon whether you believe those automobile manufacturers offer more brand quality and exclusivity today than they did in the past.
|
I am convinced without a doubt that the relative quality of a Mercedes or BMW form the 1970's and 80's was an order of magnitude better than it's American and Japanese counterpart at the time.... fast forward to today, and the Mercedes and BMW is marginally (if even) better than it's American and Japanese counterpart, until you go to the absolute top of the range, and even then it's not as dramatic.
The 1980 Mercedes 240D, their bottom of the line car was $31,000 in 1980 dollars... a Cadillac El Dorado at that time cost less than 1/2 that much .. today a bottom end Mercedes costs a fraction of a top of the range Cadillac.. Brand watering down isn't anything new... McIntosh can easily fall into this trap, but the benefit to them is that all of these companies who water down their quality also grow and experience financial gains as a result.
Sell to the classes, live with the masses..
Sell to the masses, live with the classes.