I don't want to single them out because it's ubiquitous, but since the topic is Harman, surf over to Samsung's Mark Levinson Website and check out the NPC clipart associated with the brand's high-priced gear. Trendy red wine drinking millennials (don't look like zoomers) sitting on the floor, high priced gear in the background, playing with cell phones. People who in real life could never afford this stuff, and if they could, probably wouldn't be interested in it.
Say what you will about the man, check out Mark's Daniel Hertz Website. Pure class compared to Harman's copy. Focused strictly on the gear and the music the gear is supposed to process. Heavy on the historical legacy of Mark Levinson (ML, Cello, Red Rose, and the new gear).
I'm always intrigued with ads--trying to figure out exactly for whom they are intended to influence? Ads used to be directed toward a product. Now, marketing decisions appear to be random, based on an imagined lifestyle, with casting demographics you'd expect to find in a random Netflix drama. The gear is often secondary, prominent in the background, simply playing a 'supporting role'. Featuring a record player, whether it is associated with the brand, or not. Where did that requirement come from? For loudspeaker companies, associated electronics are often historical products from the '70s. Those larger than life Pioneer receivers and such.
I suppose that Web sites are designed by ad agencies? Have ad agency designers forgotten how to spell? Has anyone trained employees to use spell checkers? Are responsible parties even interested in the hobby? Madman Adman Peter Aczel worked in Madison Ave long before he started his hi-fi publishing operation. Peter's ads (compare Rectilinear) always featured the gear and its special properties (real or imagined). If he 'featured' red wine drinking snobs, it was to lampoon the New England AR crowd, and their 'too polite' muffled sounding loudspeakers. Or loud agressive hippies blown away by JBLs. It was always gear oriented.
Interesting to compare the erstwhile Akai hi-fi brand. Always second tier (especially once open reel went south in consumer space), Akai went from highlighting music and artists, to Playboy sex, to Valley Girl. However, other than Qunicy, none of those demographics was really interested in Akai hi-fi, and the brand simply faded away to obscurity. But there were no misspelled words, so they had that going for them.
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