Like non-cell telephones, CD players, stereo components, clock radios, microwave ovens, toasters, mixers and blenders?
A visitor from Arcturus would think the only things they could buy here are large appliances, cell phones, I-Pods, digital cameras, laptop computers, and television sets (and prescription drugs, of course).
Is it because there are no innovations in small appliances? Because the small items are cheap and disposable – there’s no money in them to justify TV ads?
Yeah, that’s it. You spend, what? - $7.99 on a clock radio once every five years? That’s not what I’d call a huge market, even if everyone buys one. Advertising is only worthwhile for two types of things - expensive things you buy rarely (like cars) or cheap things you buy often (like beer). Anything else just isn’t worth it.
My WAG: Large appliances, iPods and laptop computer ads are selling the virtue of their specific brand. If you’re an Apple iPod partisan, you won’t be wooed by the competing products by Rio or Microsoft, and an ad on TV getting you into the store won’t result in you buying a competitor’s product.
For blenders, toasters, clock radios and the like, there’s less differention between brands, especially under $40. A $25 toaster gives you the same thing a $30 toaster does. If Sony spends the big bucks on an ad campaign to get you into the store to buy a Walkman and you see essentially the same product by, I dunno, Sharp or Toshiba for five dollars less, Sony just paid big bucks to have you buy a big heap of Not Sony. Who needs that kind of heartache?
These are generically called “commodity” products. Although manufacturers try to distinguish themselves, there’s really no good differences between brands and people tend to buy them based on price and convenience rather than quality and features. The term is used for everything from small computers to chicken soup.
Those explanations all make great sense, thanks.
On early-1980s MTV, I used to see ads for component stereo equipment, car stereos, speakers, and the like. Then again, the channel aired music back then, so advertising stereo equipment was a natural.
They do of course do general “Brand” promotion in the hope that when you have to pick between nearly identical products you’ll choose their one. Sponsorship, catchy taglines and sticking their logo on everything from the sky to bananas.
When people are shopping they strive for some differentiating sign. Something that will allow them to feel confident in their purchase. Sometimes Brand is all there is.
Every so often in the context of an ad for the (usually local) appliance store I’ll see a mention of a smaller consumer electronic product. No idea how they go about picking which brand to promote; maybe they cut some deal with the manufacturer or are just overstocked?
It works for this consumer. Unless there’s a big price difference, I go with what I know, or what I think I know.
I was really nervous leaving the store with an Acer monitor instead of the HP, let me tell you. I’d never heard of them.
The funny thing is how much “whiteboxing” goes on. For example Dell printers are or were made by lexmark. I have heard tons of people say they would prefer a dell printer over the identical lexmark unit or in a couple cases people thought lexmark was trying to decieve people into buying them by making them look just like the dell ones.
Indeed! I love this phenomenon.
The number of people who’ll buy a good brand, say Sony over Alba, when all Sony did was contract the building out to the lowest bidder and stick their label on it.
The salesman you can trust becomes a lot more useful when you don’t have time to research all this stuff for yourself for every single purchase.
I’ve never heard the irrational faith we have as consumers summarised better. I hope you won’t mind if I steal your post and use it in sales training.
No problem. What’s it worth to ya? 
This made me grin maniacally, and I thank you for it. 
I need the cheering up at the moment, what with the imminent Probably Going To Lose My Job Because Of [Expletive Deleted] Customers thing…
But yeah, the problem with most “Consumer Electronics” is that they’re all pretty much of a muchness. There’s a surprising amount of cheap electronics (including sub-$100 printers) for which you might as well just flip a coin to decide which one you want, and there’s bugger all difference between, say, three different types of $99 Toaster or $25 Alarm Clock/Radio. They all do the same thing, in the same way- it bascially boils down to A)Which one do you think looks nicer and B) Which one is on sale at the moment?
FWIW, a lot of these small electronic items mentioned in the OP did have television commercials at one time. I remember the early “GE … we bring good things to life!” commercials for mixers, microwaves, blenders, etc. Oester and Black & Decker had similar commercials.
I seem to remember commercials for Pioneer speakers … not for the other stereo components, though. But then there are Bose Wave Radio commercials.
I do have to admit, though: I’ve never seen commercials for regular ol’ toasters, clock radios, or dial telephones