Marketing Analysis of Washburn Guitar

Today, Bass Pro Shops is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that specializes in sporting and hunting equipment. The company's current position is a far cry from its modest beginnings in 1971 when the company's founder, Johnny Morris began selling fishing lures on just two shelves in his father's liquor store. With fifty-two retail outlets as well as a number of Outdoor World superstores in the United States and Canada, a user-friendly Web site and extensive mail catalog sales, Bass Pro Shops has become a leading sporting and hunting goods in North America today. To determine how the company achieved this impressive growth, this paper provides an analysis of Bass Pro Shop's corporate strategy using Ansoff's Growth Strategies and Porter's generic strategies for growth, the company's market segmentation and marketing mix. Finally, an assessment of appropriate Bass Pro Shop's marketing metrics is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.

Much of Thomas Newman’s music is rooted in the sounds of the deep south, with several interesting cues written for an eclectic ensemble including such weird and wonderful instruments as a bowed travelling guitar, a Vietnamese banjo, a jaw harp, bass marimbas, a tonut and the omnipresent saz. Occasionally, the music attains a kind of hypnotic sensibility that draws the listener in, but at other times it

Born near the beachy shores of South Carolina, Trevor Hall grew up listening to the melodious tunes of his father’s harmonica and drum set (Rosenfield, 2012). Throughout his young life, inspired by his father, Hall would constantly be glued to a notepad writing music; following his dreams, at 16, Hall recorded and released his very first record. With all of the joy found in writing and releasing

From the moment I heard the majestic scream of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar, I knew I had to learn how to play guitar. I was but only a listener at the time, but the passion of a musician budded within me, and locked my vicarious attention on every note. The more I listened to Van Halen, the more I wanted to stop being a listener, and start being a creator. It was like some insane urge came over me every time I listened to them - telling me to create something. It was a musical high.

The 1960’s was an era of revolution and social change in the United States. Painters, dancers, actors, musicians and many more artists all wanted to portray societies immoral issues through their art. Musicians played a very prominent role in providing society with an outlet on the importance of this change. Within these musicians was a folk rock singer and songwriter by the name of Robert Allen Zimmerman, or as America knows him, Bob Dylan. He is known and honored around the world for his influence on popular music and culture, however, he is much more than that (Wood 313). The beginning of Bob Dylan’s career as a singer and songwriter was marked by his repetitive emphasis on social change throughout his protest songs which include “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall,” “Masters of War,” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’”; with each song, Dylan exposes many issues that affected, not one, but many lives as he aimed to spread social and political consciousness to society.

From the creation of harmonies to singing to instruments, music has been an abstract form of human expression. Although an auditory collection of pitches and volumes, musicians can manipulate the same notes and bring them alive for their audiences. The true emotion and energy that’s felt in music really comes from the player as feelings are transferred to and through the listener. This interaction between performer and the house is catharsis, the complete release of strong repressed emotions. Thanks to the musician, music has the ability to grasp people and cause them to sense emotions and feelings without lyrics or images even being necessary. Although it’s believed we can only hear with our ears, something about music makes it emotionally if not physically tangible. In James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues,” a narrator certainly unaware of the impact of music invites himself to experience jazz for the first time. Baldwin uses the final scene of his story to argue that music has an effect on those who are able to experience it. Baldwin does this in one single moment by letting the fixed, practical minded, “well-intentioned” narrator experience catharsis from jazz as his growing, free-spirited brother communicates with him through jazz.

“The rise of rock ‘n’ roll and the reception of it, in fact, can tell us a lot about the culture and values of the United States in the 1950s. According to historians James Gilbert, there was a struggle throughout the decade ‘over the uses of popular culture to determine who would speak to what audience, and for what purpose”. At the center of that struggle, rock ‘n’ roll unsettled a nation had been “living in an ‘age of anxiety’” since 1945” (p.15). Altschuler talks about how music and race interlock with one another. Rock had become a “highly visible and contested arena for struggles over racial identity and cultural and economic empowerment in the United States” (p.35). Other chapters within the book state the battles involving sexuality, generational conflicts, as well as other social issues. The author states ideas that are somewhat problematic. For example, he states that there is a myth that rock ‘n’ roll went into a “lull” following the payola hearings (the practice of record promoters paying DJs or radio programmers to play their labels ' songs) of 1959 and did not come about again until the arrival of the Beatles in 1964.

“ ‘ Where did you ever see a guitar’? ( Milkman talking to Guitar) ‘ It was a contest. … I saw it when my mother took me downtown with her. I was just a baby. … I cried for it, they said. And always asked about it.’ ” ( Morrison p.

The 1960’s in America was often referred to as an age of protest because of not only the social protests that have taken place, but also for the upbringing of protest music, which became very popular during that era. The roots of protest music were largely from folk music of American musicians during 1950’. Folk musicians, such as Joe Hill, composed labor union protest songs and distributed song booklets, hoping to “fan the flames of discontent.” (Rodnitzky pg. 6) Symbolically, this meant that the songs, the fan, would reduce the uncontrollable social protests that the United States government caused with the misleading information that they did not keep their word on, or the flames of discontent. Other folk musicians, such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, traveled around the United States spreading their “message music” and becoming involved in political movements. Guthrie and Seeger were the pioneers of protest music, bringing their folk music to New York City and merging it with urban music. Woody’s songs were about the masses, often identifying problems and offering solutions. While Seeger was cautious about referring to his music as folk music, preferring the term “people’s music,” meaning that not everyone may had the same thoughts, but they all expressed it in their own unique musical sense. For both Woody and Seeger, folk music was a necessity in these protests, when the needs

I think pricing objectives and competition are two major impacts that could affect pricing decisions at Washburn. I think with any company you’re going to have some type of competition, but as a company you have to take the next step to bring in more consumers or what can I do to make my product better. Then with pricing objectives, Washburn does try to have discounts, and lower there pricing for certain customers. Also, lowering prices, and having special discounts does eventually bring in more customers. Once that starts to happen, the company can slowly start raising pricing on the products.

The origins of the guitar can be traced back to the Arabic oud. The Arabic oud is stringed

More than any other instrument, the electric guitar has shaped and redefined music in the last century. Although popular culture did not pay much attention to it when it was first introduced in the 1930s, it has since become equated with the very essence of rock and roll music. On an international level, the electric guitar is by far "the most famous instrument to come out of the United States" (howstuffworks.com).

Fender is an American manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers based out of Scottsdale, Arizona. The privately held company was founded by Clarence Leonidas “Leo” Fender in Clifornia in 1946. The company specializes in solid body electric guitars such as the Stratocaster and Telecaster, and solid body electric bass guitars such as the Precision and Jazz models. Fender instruments are widely considered to be the standard to which most other electric guitars are measured.

In 1973, exactly twenty-five years prior to my birth, my parents were just in elementary school. They told me stories about their lives back then but none contained any traces of music. The only stories about music back in those years were from my grandmother. Back then, my parents grew up in Viet Nam in a poor family with no televisions so they couldn’t really listen to any music growing up. Although my parents could not listen to music on television like how we can now; they were able to come to live performances by local artists held at the district’s performance center every other month because the shows were free. My grandmother told me that the music back then was really different than how it is now. The songs served many purposes to the citizens, it was an encouragement to soldiers at war, it was the rhythm that put kids to sleep, it was the comfort food for everyone who listen. Grandma told me the style

guitars and process them so that they sound like a percussion instrument.”.’(Butch Vig, from R. Buskin: