commercials

[Anonymous]

i just realized that u never see any model railroad commercials y is that if all these companies r making all this money from lawsuits they should have some money 2 make some commercials

[AggroJones]

Any "commercial" will come on model railroad related websites, magasines, and books. Some were the target audience will see. TV isn't a good place for them to advertise. Too vast.

[willy6]

Interesting topic.I might have a good answer.Lets say for example Athearn runs a commercial for their "John Deere" trainset and little Johnny sees it and tells mom and dad he wants one for christmas.Where I live at , there is no way mom and dad will find it in any store including my LHS.

[nslakediv]

besides who has time to watch TV when you should be working on the layout, and it is very expensive.

[cwclark]

I saw my first " Model Railroad" commercial Monday...Papa Ben's Hobby Shop in the Houston area had a 30 second commercial on during the news Monday...I've seen advertisements about the "Great American Train Show " before, but never a commercial on a LHS...way to go Ben!..maybe this will start a trend to get others into the hobby...Chuck[:D]

[bpickering]

Broad-based advertising is INCREDIBLY expensive, and you need a REALLY wide market of paying customers to justify it. Print is OK (like, Newspapers), but TV is out of sight.

On specific example: one of my dad's college friends Ed invented, patented, and marketed a device to simulate cross-country skiing. Maybe you've heard of it- the Nordic Trac. (I still remember trying out serial number 0 back in the mid-70s- I looked just as awkward as any newbie getting on mine today!)

Background:
Through the 80s, it was a family-owned business- (he did the design/engineering, wife did the marketing, and son designed all the machinery to mass produce them.) Marketing consisted SOLELY of targeted ads in magazines like Smithsonian and National Geographic- targeted at a market niche of a) people who likely had some spare scratch, and b) with an appreciation of the outdoors, likely to be XC skiiers. It was PURELY a mail-order business- they had a single factory/office in MN.

The failure:
In the early 90s, they sold the company to a group of investors. Said group then initiated a HUGE expansion- if you pay attention to such things, this is when Nordic-Trac started a big TV ad campaign, and opened outlets in all sorts of malls. Guess what- within five or six years, they went bankrupt.

Ed recognized that the margins weren't high-enough, nor was the demand wide-enough, to justify such mass marketing. As a result, he's a multi-millionaire now. Nordic-Trac is still around, but I don't see many ads anymore (of course, I don't actually get to see much TV at all, but the point remains.)

I suspect we see most MR advertising in train- and hobby-related publications for just this reason.

Brian

[bcammack]

QUOTE: Originally posted by cwclark

I saw my first " Model Railroad" commercial Monday...Papa Ben's Hobby Shop in the Houston area had a 30 second commercial on during the news Monday

WOW! Really? That's great! What station? I can spend hours at Papa Ben's...

[egmurphy]

QUOTE: Chuck: I saw my first " Model Railroad" commercial Monday...Papa Ben's Hobby Shop in the Houston area had a 30 second commercial on during the news Monday...I've seen advertisements about the "Great American Train Show " before, but never a commercial on a LHS...way to go Ben!..

Thanks for mentioning that. I wonder if he produced the spot himself? I think he used to be in that business before he opened the hobby shop. In fact, I think the shop used to be his studio.

QUOTE: Brett: I can spend hours at Papa Ben's...

Me too! Or at least I could when I lived there. [:(] Now he has to mail me stuff.


Regards

Ed

[Anonymous]

Lately Franklin Mint has been advertising their Thomas Kincaid train set. The commercials can be found in the Sunday paper.

[PennsyHoosier]

I just read the December Model Railroader. I've had enough "commercials" to last me some time. [:O][;)]