The Battle Of The Telescope Makers: Meade vs Celestron

The Battle Of The Telescope Makers: Meade vs Celestron

A business lesson that's still relevant to-day from Ed Ting:

Meade Instruments began in the early 1970's as a modest company selling replacement parts for ATMs. Complete telescopes followed in the latter part of the decade. Meade's growth came slowly and steadily at first. But then, sometime around 1980, Meade experienced explosive growth with the introduction of their 2080 series of Schmidt Cassegrain telescopes. Finally, amateurs had a serious and economical alternative to the Celestron scopes.  ...

In many ways, the advertising strategies of the two companies at the time were quite revealing -- they were almost diametrically opposed to one another.  Meade's ads, done in a classy black and white, showed studious, somewhat nerdy men, wearing white lab coats and thick glasses.  Meade obviously took their products very seriously, and their literature reflected this, often approaching the level of fine art.

In contrast, Celestron took a more traditional approach, showing pretty women (some in dresses and high heels) posing provocatively at the eyepiece.  Most of them looked as if they had never been anywhere near an astronomical telescope before that morning's photo shoot. Many astronomers I've talked to still resent these ads today.  "I'm insulted", is a typical comment. What they were silently saying was "I'm buying a Meade -- they respect my hobby."

Comments

[ティファニー]

tiffany & coスウォッチ グループ ジャパンはこのほど、東京?銀座のニコラス?G?ハイエック センター内に「ティファニー ウォッチ ショールーム」をオープンした。男性向けの「アトラス ジェント スクエア クロノグラフ」、女性向けの「ティファニー ジェメア」をはじめ、希少性の高いアイテムも展示、販売される。Tiffany Rings

[Tom McMahon]

It's those Celestron people who are after me

[Pectoris Fleo]

Tom.
Inform on you so they'd do what? Take you to a concentration camp? Have you shot? You're part of this new craze because you were told to think that this somehow qualifies as informing. Where was your protectiveness of your freedoms when the Patriot Act was passed? You know... the one that ACTUALLY RAPES YOUR FREEDOMS? Let me guess. You were right behind it, weren't you?