I’m gonna suggest that maybe in reality it shows that they’re trying to roll back on all the self-inflicted damage their marketing strategy has done them. You could speculate that their attempt over the past decade to give the fingers to the media and the rest of the industry and create a separate “disruptor” ecosystem all of their own hasn’t really worked out and now they’re coming crawling back. If you wanted to go even further, you could also speculate on whether this might be related to the threat of tariffs on imports to the US from China.
I listened to a bit of the Sonicstate podcast the other day and Nick Batt mentioned getting an invite to go to the Behringer booth but until then he’d been wondering whether they’d engage with him at all, so seems to me like they’re trying to rebuild some of the bridges they’ve burned.
But ultimately I wouldn’t read too much into whether or not a big company is at a big trade show. It comes down to money and not much more, doesn’t mean anything about their “status and position” or whether they’re any more or less pariahs than when they weren’t doing these things, just that they made a deal to have a slot.
Eh, I wasn’t saying you weren’t entitled to speculate or have a different read on this, not in the slightest. Not sure how that post would’ve given that impression, but if it did it definitely wasn’t intended. After all, I’m posting idle speculation to pass the time before there’s real news to talk about, just the same as you are.
If you ask me, they’ve bypassed the press and instead focused on their end users, and drove engagement through social media and let the discourse change slowly without ever really spending too much time challenging the dominating frame of them being copy artists (or whatever negative term one might use if one is inclined). Instead they sort of leaned into aspects of it (“we create affordable music instruments” etc.). They were very aware of the negative press, and instead let their products speak for themselves.
Rather clever, if you ask me. I honestly think their communication and marketing is quite good, and I’m very keen to see this next development in their external communication strategy.
they pooped their pants publicly with the cringy flame war they had with that one dude who made whatever innocuous point he made about behringer. then they doubled down with the antiestablishment stuff “actually, its good to poop your pants.” they probably figure enough time has passed that the smell has dissipated
Probably best that this doesn’t become yet another Behringer debate thread so also using a content warning. But I just have one more thing that struck me since my last post that I think is funny enough - to me at least - that it’s worth adding.
You’re absolutely right that it’s a negative take, but I have a far less benign view of their antics so that tracks. And also that they tried to create their own alternative channels using the internet with guerrilla marketing and attempts at shitposting on big forums / social media to drive buzz to sidestep the industry/media “elites”. Although fwiw I don’t agree at all that they were just sitting back and letting the products speak for themselves, they were very very very active in driving this stuff in that era, like you say it is/was a considered strategy of performative hostility towards media/competitors.
All very much in line with the rise of “populist” / “anti-establishment” tactics on the internet in the 2010s, drew on pretty much the same playbook. So I think it’s pretty funny/ironic to speculate that they’re being forced to play ball with the industry a lot more now because the most notable beneficiary of these same tactics is shaping up to slap tariffs on their products.