Years ago WBB stopped promoting their product in our magazine. It was an all of a sudden pull out of ANY kind of advertising of their product. When asked why, the reason given was that they did not think advertising in OGR and on the forum was profitable and that "marketing" could not justify promoting their product in this community / format. When I pointed out that dozens of threads discussing their product were started in response to ads run by them in the magazine AND that tens of thousands of clicks were taking place on their banner on the forum, the response was on the edge of being negative...sort of a don't bother us attitude. Frankly, I could not get audience with the power's to be or the marketing team. The door was pretty much slammed shut. A similar scenario took place with other advertising venues.
When "top of mind" awareness is lost, it can be difficult to regain. In addition, pricing of the product in their catalogs was not competitive with other more advanced offerings and went a long way in reducing demand. All of this along with a couple of years of supply and manufacturing problems due to the COVID situation probably explains much of what is going on currently. I can tell you this much ... believe Larry when he gives you his opinion and outlook because it is likely based on what has already been decided.
