Reverend Musical

Showcasing value drivers: Online communities such as Harmony Central (HC) provide a platform where users provide their own experiences with the guitars. If value drivers of products, which are launched by a relatively new brand such as Reverend, get emphasized in such an unbiased environment then they are highly regarded by the potential customers. Most customers know that dealers, even if selling multiple brands, usually provide views which are skewed towards products with higher profit margins. Manufacturers obviously are going to vouch for their products. Reverend’s value drivers: quality as good as Fender or Gibson at lower price- got emphasized via HC. Number ratings out of 10 for different aspects of a guitar such as feature, sound, reliability etc provide an easy way for the customers to assess the products especially which are launched by relatively new brands such as Reverend. Comparison of the products becomes exhaustive on online communities which enabled customers to evaluate Reverend Guitars against guitars from established names. However, potential customers would have to be ‘regular’ on such online communities to distinguish between ‘fake’ reviews and ‘authentic’ ones. This is a reasonable assumption since guitar is not a procurement-time sensitive product and customers usually surf the reviews for some time period before actually buying it.

Reverend was not able to get endorsements because famous guitarists were already under contracts of big names. Although a review by guitarist Will Ray on HC generated fortunes for Reverend. It was a cost-effective method for Reverend which worked almost as good as an endorsement.

Market research opportunity: Users were posting their experiences with Reverend guitars on HC, which acted as a cost effective way for Reverend to get customers’ feedback and understand their mindset. Established players can do their own market research via dedicated teams in the field, but for a small player like Reverend, it would...