As someone who works in network television ...
... I can assure you that never in the history of CNN has a single commercial ever cost $250,000.
You're talking SUPERBOWL rates here ... on NETWORK PRIME TIME television.
Perhaps an entire year's worth of 30-second spots that run three times daily on CNN might cost $250K.
But I certainly get your point.
Ironic that company that keeps manufacturing costs ultra-low, using the cheapest (and likely most toxic) plastic (and ONLY plastic!) and the cheapest labor in the world then turns around and spends millions on advertising said product.
And yet, Kirbys and Aeruses -- that don't skimp on materials or labor -- spend hardly anything on advertising.
It's been my experience throughout life that the best things out there are rarely, if ever, advertised to the masses. Why? Because they don't HAVE to be.
Anybody ever hear of Stickley furniture? I didn't. I was well into my 30s as a high-paid media executive living in Manhattan -- GAY no less -- with what I thought was an impeccable sense of style. It took a friend from LA visiting NYC to drag me to a showroom I never knew existed -- right on Fifth Avenue -- to become acquainted with one of the last remaining high-end AMERICAN furniture companies. And it wasn't a storefront on the street level, either; you had to just go into this nondescript office building, simply tell the security desk "fourth floor", and an elevator whisked you into a world of hand-crafted furniture that I thought had long disappeared from the world. Everything solid oak or cherry. Nothing glued. Not a staple in sight. Craftsmanship I'd seen only in my own father's workshop, but never in a *store* of any kind.
I naively asked one of the senior sales associates why they don't advertise, or at least "get the word out". She looked around and said "My dear, the word IS out. YOU got here, didn't you?"
Her point was, the people who NEED to know about Stickley ... knew about Stickley. The company has been doing just fine for more than 100 years without television commercials, billboards, or sales gimmicks. And what would all that advertising bring, anyway? Foot traffic of people who a) can't tell the difference between handcrafted solid oak and tarted-up particleboard and b) wouldn't pay $5,000 for a desk or bookcase in a million years, even if they COULD afford it.
And so it goes with vacuums. The masses of consumers don't care how well-built that Kirby or Aerus is, and aren't inclined to spend $2,000 on a vacuum anyway. So the advertising would be wasted.
