Raising money for a hackable, open hardware-based USB protocol analyzer
A stellar pair of reverse engineers, bushing and pytey from iPhone DevTeam/Team Twiizers, have launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to back OpenVizsla, a open/hackable hardware-based USB protocol analyzer. They've got my support -- this work will continue to enable free/open drivers for everything from iPods to 3G modems, and allow indie software developers to continue making tools that interact with our hardware:
USB has a standard, published interface that is properly described (at great length) but the actual protocols for connected devices are not common and are often proprietary to the individual vendors or manufacturers. USB succeeded at eliminating most strange cables, but requires custom drivers for many types of hardware.
Often, these USB protocols are intentionally obfuscated to make them confusing and complex in order to attempt to restrict support to the original manufacturer of the device. In this case the USB packets themselves hold the key to the information that is necessary to write independent third party drivers.
Protocol analysis and reverse engineering is needed to create such drivers and these tasks rely on the real-time capture of USB traffic. Software-based analyzers are available, but only useful in certain limited applications.
Hardware based protocol analyzers are expensive and are usually out of the reach of most independent developers, hobbyists and hackers. The most popular products cost $1400+ and, with few exceptions, use proprietary Windows-only client software, proprietary protocols, and proprietary data formats that are hard to export for use with other software.
OpenVizsla will be a completely open design of a device that can capture USB 1.1/2.0 (high-speed, full-speed and low-speed) traffic passively between a target USB device and the connected host (usually a PC, but potentially anything that has a USB host port -- think Xbox 360 and PS3). It will be controlled by any computer using open-source client software or potentially in standalone mode (where captured traffic is stored onto an on-board SD card).
"OpenVizsla" Open Source USB Protocol Analyzer
It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)
But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.
Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.
The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.
It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.
BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.
Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.
We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.
After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.
Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.
You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.
bench craft company rip offs
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
true bench craft company rip off
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
bench craft company rip off program
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
advertising enlargement info
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
click to view author
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
http://ddfghhdfxd.com/
Raising money for a hackable, open hardware-based USB protocol analyzer
A stellar pair of reverse engineers, bushing and pytey from iPhone DevTeam/Team Twiizers, have launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to back OpenVizsla, a open/hackable hardware-based USB protocol analyzer. They've got my support -- this work will continue to enable free/open drivers for everything from iPods to 3G modems, and allow indie software developers to continue making tools that interact with our hardware:
USB has a standard, published interface that is properly described (at great length) but the actual protocols for connected devices are not common and are often proprietary to the individual vendors or manufacturers. USB succeeded at eliminating most strange cables, but requires custom drivers for many types of hardware.
Often, these USB protocols are intentionally obfuscated to make them confusing and complex in order to attempt to restrict support to the original manufacturer of the device. In this case the USB packets themselves hold the key to the information that is necessary to write independent third party drivers.
Protocol analysis and reverse engineering is needed to create such drivers and these tasks rely on the real-time capture of USB traffic. Software-based analyzers are available, but only useful in certain limited applications.
Hardware based protocol analyzers are expensive and are usually out of the reach of most independent developers, hobbyists and hackers. The most popular products cost $1400+ and, with few exceptions, use proprietary Windows-only client software, proprietary protocols, and proprietary data formats that are hard to export for use with other software.
OpenVizsla will be a completely open design of a device that can capture USB 1.1/2.0 (high-speed, full-speed and low-speed) traffic passively between a target USB device and the connected host (usually a PC, but potentially anything that has a USB host port -- think Xbox 360 and PS3). It will be controlled by any computer using open-source client software or potentially in standalone mode (where captured traffic is stored onto an on-board SD card).
"OpenVizsla" Open Source USB Protocol Analyzer
It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)
But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.
Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.
The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.
It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.
BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.
Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.
We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.
After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.
Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.
You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.
homebench craft company rip off
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
bench craft company rip off herbs
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
truth aboutbench craft company rip off
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
advertising enlargement drugs
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
bench craft company rip off pictures
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
bench craft company rip off product
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
real bench craft company rip off
Raising money for a hackable, open hardware-based USB protocol analyzer
A stellar pair of reverse engineers, bushing and pytey from iPhone DevTeam/Team Twiizers, have launched a Kickstarter fundraiser to back OpenVizsla, a open/hackable hardware-based USB protocol analyzer. They've got my support -- this work will continue to enable free/open drivers for everything from iPods to 3G modems, and allow indie software developers to continue making tools that interact with our hardware:
USB has a standard, published interface that is properly described (at great length) but the actual protocols for connected devices are not common and are often proprietary to the individual vendors or manufacturers. USB succeeded at eliminating most strange cables, but requires custom drivers for many types of hardware.
Often, these USB protocols are intentionally obfuscated to make them confusing and complex in order to attempt to restrict support to the original manufacturer of the device. In this case the USB packets themselves hold the key to the information that is necessary to write independent third party drivers.
Protocol analysis and reverse engineering is needed to create such drivers and these tasks rely on the real-time capture of USB traffic. Software-based analyzers are available, but only useful in certain limited applications.
Hardware based protocol analyzers are expensive and are usually out of the reach of most independent developers, hobbyists and hackers. The most popular products cost $1400+ and, with few exceptions, use proprietary Windows-only client software, proprietary protocols, and proprietary data formats that are hard to export for use with other software.
OpenVizsla will be a completely open design of a device that can capture USB 1.1/2.0 (high-speed, full-speed and low-speed) traffic passively between a target USB device and the connected host (usually a PC, but potentially anything that has a USB host port -- think Xbox 360 and PS3). It will be controlled by any computer using open-source client software or potentially in standalone mode (where captured traffic is stored onto an on-board SD card).
"OpenVizsla" Open Source USB Protocol Analyzer
It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)
But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.
Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.
The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.
It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.
BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.
Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.
We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.
After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.
Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.
You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.
bench craft company rip off machine
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
no gravatar
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
click to view author
AMERICAblog <b>News</b>: They're only symbolic battles when you never <b>...</b>
News and opinion about US politics from a liberal perspective.
Good <b>News</b>, for a Change (SWJ Blog)
Ann Marlowe, not known for optimistic reporting and commentary on our efforts in Afghanistan, takes a different tone in her Weekly Standard piece entitled Good News, for a Change. BLUF: "… Zabul seems to be on an upward path. ...
Small Business <b>News</b>: The Small Business Samba
From the slow dance Republicans and Democrats have been doing in Washington the last few weeks over tax cuts and jobless benefit extensions approved earlier.
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