This whole product launch has me rather perplexed and shaking my head: what was Genelec thinking by hyping this big unveiling? Too, based on some of the snarky comments, is this marketing effort potentially backfiring on them? Is this a Genelec attempt at an Apple-esque event, gone a wee-bit sour?
Thinking outloud:
If the MSRP is truly $75K +/- :
- how many pairs to they forecasting to sell per year? A dozen? Perhaps two dozen?
- who is their target audience - Pro studios who will already be reading about these in trade mags/ blogs, etc? Genelec FanBoys with, "stupid" money (sorry) who are going to buy the most expensive Genelec product no matter what the price.
- how much did they spend to produce the video launch? Granted, as of now, they've had 1162 viewers. Realistically, how many incremental sales will they generate from that video yet how much will the professional production cost of that video add to the cost of each pair of 8381's
If I were the product manager for a high-end product like these speakers, I'd take a different approach.
- I'd spend my marketing money shipping a speaker (and hydraulic lift) to Amir for testing thus creating some buzz (with the agreement that I could use Amir's comments on the product web page.)
- spend my time talking to pro-audio writers;
- spend my budget attending at well targeted trade shows attended by high-end Genelec dealers rather than creating a great unveiling for a product that is probably priced above 98% of even an, "audiophile" audience like ASR.
To me, this, "great unveiling" really missed the mark. Apparently a very nice speaker but very silly marketing.