No question that in terms of widespread name recognition, Genz Benz is no Fender, Ampeg, Marshall or Gibson. But in terms of reputation for quality, none of those brands is a Genz Benz either.
Fender, Ampeg, Marshall & Gibson are mainstream, mass-market brands. Genz Benz is a boutique brand. Different market. Different customer demographic. They don't overlap - very much.
By keeping the Genz Benz brand alive, as well as the Fender brand, FMIC can compete in both market segments simultaneously. But if they cannibalize Genz Benz in order to strengthen Fender, they likely lose much of the boutique business they might otherwise have gained, at least in the short-to-intermediate term. They lose much of the high-end customer loyalty they might have retained, with it probably taking a long time to ever win back. Meanwhile, the value of many of the new product improvements (presumably) will be lost upon most of their core customer base (i.e. kids without much money, who buy their gear at Guitar Center, Sam Ash & Musician's Friend).
In the short term, it's a lose-lose strategy, IMO. Long term, it can work. But only if Fender is prepared to stay the course for the long term, continuing to invest in the improvement of its brand by continuing to invest in new, higher-end, cutting-edge products. Eventually public perception will catch up - but not for a number of years.
Based on what I've seen thus far, I'm not convinced that FMIC can sustain the kind of strategic vision and tenacious discipline necessary to resist the pressure to take short-term profit, long enough to make such a strategy actually work. And if they quit on it before they've succeeded in completing the transition process, then they wind up with the worst of all possible worlds: having dissolved a winning brand, without having fully capitalized upon it.
You can't jump halfway across a ditch, as the saying goes. If you can't make it all the way across, better to stay where you are.
MM
