The problem I have with that aspect is that the original logo is something that is widely considered synonymous with the earlier,much better made/playing/quality production.
The thing is...we know that Bob knows this too. It just seems to me that he's totally fine with exploiting this idea amongst the "uninitiated" but with an inferior product.
I think if we were all really honest about this then we would be really upfront about the fact that Meucci cues did not suddenly change in quality the day the logos changed.
Guys really, I am in manufacturing. I know that so many of you like to speculate and that rumors abound. It doesn't matter to you that Tweeten Fiber has said on many occassions that there is ZERO difference in the pre and flag chalk still there are people who INSIST that the formula changed. It doesn't matter to you that Laurie Franklin insists that the way a SouthWest is made is exactly the same as when Jerry was alive, some of you persist in claiming that it's not so.
99% of the time when a company changes the logo they are doing NOTHING to change the product. Nothing. Nothing to improve it, nothing to degrade it.
I would a lot of money, and I mean A LOT of money that you could take any Meucci cues made withing two years of the logo change and bandsaw them and find that the construction was nearly identical.
Now, let's talk about the reality of Meucci buyers.
First the Meucci Collector? This is probably the rarest form of cue collector that exists. Being that Meucci cues are held in such low esteem by so many there just aren't that many people out there who are collecting them I don't think. And the ones who are should be pretty well versed in what's what. I honestly doubt that for this group the new use of the block letter logo is going to affect the "value" of their collection.
The Meucci Flipper? I guess this could be someone who wants to perpetuate the idea that cues with the Meucci Originals logo are far better and more desirable than the cursive logo. In this case I can see why a flipper would be upset when Bob decides to use the block letter logo again. Only thing is that Meucci cues is not beholden to protect the profit margins of people flipping old cues on the secondary market. When a company is in business then can decide to use any logo they own at any time for any reason. And ESPECIALLY when there is a group of people out there actively telling new customers not to buy the new cues because the older ones with a certain logo were better, which they just happen to have for sale..... can one say conflict of interest?
The Meucci Buyer? In today's cue market buyers have thousands of cue choices. If someone is looking at a Meucci cue then it's primarily based on them liking how the cue looks more than liking how it plays in my opinion. I think most buyers of Meuccis tend to be unsophisticated players who are shopping based on visual appeal. That's just my feeling of course. Surely some of them are decent players who actually like how Meucci cues played. And in that case I am sure they are well aware of what it is that they are buying if they frequent any message boards at all. And if they don't frequent message boards and are not aware of Meucci's quality issues then they wouldn't be swayed by a difference in logo anyway.
Ok now having said all this I want to say why brands are important. Trust. The very fact that some people will sweat on a Bible that a cue with one version of a logo is better than the same model with another version is exactly why brands are important to preserve and protect. A brand signifies to the buyer that a product can be trusted to perform in accordance with the reputation attached to the brand. The very fact that Meucci's reputation is so fragmented is a sad sad sad example of poor brand management.
The quality of Meucci cues might have gone down after the switch to the new logo but in fact the switch to the new logo happened at a time when production went WAY UP due to the booming billiard business. What didn't keep up is the quality of customer service and that skews perception of product quality more than anything. Good customer service keeps reports of product issues out of the news. Poor customer service encourages people to talk about it.
The actual rate of defects might have been about the same before and after the logo change. But the fact that the actual rate of good service declined is what soured most people on Meucci cues in my opinion. I personally don't think that the logo itself has any bearing on the quality of the cues.
