Whats with all these old American brand names being resurrected by new companies?
A. There’s a lot of “name recognition” in the piano business. Branding a product name to where it becomes a household word is something that most companies can only dream of. In pianos, it takes decades if not generations to achieve “household” status. Most people who are reading this might recognize names like Kimball, Wurlitzer, Baldwin and Steinway as being names they grew up with. Kawai and Yamaha have become household words to younger generations. But with the recent influx of Chinese and Indonesian pianos in the marketplace, there is a sudden arsenal of brands in the marketplace and everyone is jockeying for market share. A way to quickly gain market share is to take a well-known (but now defunct) piano name and apply the familiar name to a new piano. Take Chickering, Wurlitzer, Knabe, Sohmer, Weber or Kohler & Campbell for instance. These are well known American brands that went out of business decades ago. But the names live on today on account of creative marketing minds at pi
