The other night, I caught a couple of commercials for Craftsman products. And I wondered what sort of market research they were doing.
For example, they show how their circular saw with a laser guide enables a user to make absolutely straight cuts. I thought, "That's nice, but I can clamp a straightedge to the board and use that as a reliable guide."
Then they showed a lawn mower with a switch for the blades, enabling the user to stop the blades when the thing runs over a sidewalk. Not a bad safety feature... but when I cut my lawn years ago, I'd simply tilt the thing back so the blade lifted away from the concrete.
An idiot make up that commercial. I have a Honda lawn mower that I bought in 1987 and it still runs like new. My 18 year old Honda mower has that same feature. The blade brake feature is intended for you to be able to walk away from the mower with out having to restart the motor when you return. The side walk thing left me puzzled. Using the blade brake to stop the blade every time you cross a side walk will wear out the blade brake clutch in very short order.
They can't compete on quality, performance and price, so they started to add useless features to try to give themselves a leg up on the competition. The tool world is being inundated with frickin' lasers everywhere. Soon, they'll be selling carving/steak knives with lasers on them. Such nonsense. Just like suddenly everything has to be cordless. What's next? A cordless flashlight?
That'll be cool. No longer having to worry about smacking into things with the pendulum and weights hanging from my wrist... They were driving me cuckoo.
Geees I think that must be one of the early ones. When I was in the automotive business I worked for an Olds dealer and Honda motorcycle dealer. We had the lawn mowers also and they were a new item IIRC in 1978.
The government decided that lawnmower blades should stop if you walk away from the push position of the lawn mower. Many mowers simply had a brake that you defeated. When you walked away from the mower or let go of the brake the blade AND engine stop. Honda was one of the first or the first to introduce a clutch that did not require the engine to be stopped also when the blade is stopped.
I assume you're being sarcastic, but cordless flashlights have been out for years.
Now of course, flashlights have always been cordless. The whole point of so-called cordless flashlights is that they use the same batteries as cordless tools.
I raelly, really like my Porter-Cable corsless flashlight as it is very bright and I've never killed the battery in a week of camping.
I have NOT seen the commercials.... BUT I believe that the marketing people at Sears are finally are realizing that Sears absolutely have to change their image,....
I am 61 .... and bought my home within a year after getting out of college in the Mid 60's... You bet I purchased a lot of tools...and machines, at Sears especially before 1970 or so... and the reason I did was because my dad had a lot of craftsman machines in his shop when he got me interested in woodworking...
And to be honest they were really pretty good tools and machines...My floor model drill press is still going strong and I would not trade it for anything...
HOWEVER When my children were getting interested in woodworking in the early to mid 80's they heard me constantly bitching about some of my Craftsman machines...
One of my children are "in Marketing" and to be honest I think he would CRAP if he had to Market the Craftsman brand ... or at least he would realize that he was NOT MARKLETING HIS DADS TOOLS... and would focus on things other then QUALITY....
Just my opinion... Craftsman earned a great reputation in my Dads time... Lost that reputation in my time... and are now trying to attract younger customers and rebuild their reputation... Shame they are focusing on the wrong "images"...
Bob G. sorry for the disjointed reply...was only interrupted a few dozen times .... grand kids can do not wrong... lol
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