#Marketing

CZ has a brand new Online Configurator for us to play around and toy with.

With the recent push for small arms ammunition with increased range, power and capability, are military customers in danger of being taken for a ride by industry marketeers working to sell rifles in new calibers? Is the primary driving force behind new infantry calibers not in fact a need to be addressed, but a desire to sell weapons in a stagnant small arms market?

We have just seen the cancellation of the Interim Combat Service Rifle, which gives me a good springboard to talk about marketing. Specifically, we will be discussing a kind of undercover word-of-mouth marketing that I’ve encountered a number of times over the years.

Here we all sit, with instant access to the highest volume of information in human history. In what used to take a physical trip to the library, photocopying references and reviewing microfiche records, almost everyone can “research” a topic at length using a mobile device. Not only that, we are bombarded with information we didn’t necessarily request – from advertising on blogs (TFB of course is included) to suggested pages on social media sites like Instagram and Facebook.

A lot of todos has been made recently about “Gun Culture”. With various companies hopping on the lifestyle branding and messaging bandwagon, especially in the silencer and NFA segments of the market, it’s been a welcome change to the previous hunting and self-defense only marketing that typified the firearms world for years. Various companies have used this successfully including SilencerCo, Springfield Armory, etc.

Gun companies, like most organizations these days trying to sell you something generally have some kind of catchy slogan or clever marketing buzzword associated with their brand. However, we here at TFBTV think we have come up with a nice list that is a little more accurate than what you would find in a brochure at the SHOT show.

I really am becoming quite the fan of Magpuls various marketing videos. They take the tacti-cool and mix it with a fun flavor of tactical. Latest from their video labs is how to dye one of their new Sand colored PMAG Gen 3’s.

Sometimes, I am just in awe of what a good creative person backed by a solid concept can create. SilencerCo has created the most impressive GIF image I have ever seen. By animating the shot, the explanation is incredibly more effective than a simple static graphic could hope to explain.