“We listen enough to think about it”: Fender product chief admits the brand considered replacing the entire Squier line with Fender-branded instruments
Despite Fender recently announcing the Standard Series, its brand-new budget range, it has no plans to retire its affordable Squier sub-brand – according to its EVP of Product, Justin Norvell.
Fender unveiled the Standard Series during its highly-anticipated return to NAMM back in January. It marks the company’s first Fender-branded guitar line to be manufactured outside of the US and Mexico since the Modern Player range, which debuted over a decade ago, with each model priced at $599.99. The series will arrive this April.
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Speaking to MusicRadar, Norvell says the Standard Series came about due to a gap in the market for both young players and established guitarists seeking a second guitar that’s both reliable and “rock-solid”, but without a large price tag.
“It’s not about a price point or filling a hole in a business term, it’s about, ‘I’m a kid guitar player or someone that wants a second guitar and I don’t wanna buy super high-end but I want a rock-solid, reliable name brand guitar.’ And we didn’t have that,” Norvell explains.
“Our company statement is ‘Serving all players at all stages’ and we were kind of falling down on that in some respects. I’ve already watched some of the punditry post-launch where it’s like, ‘Oh, it’s a Squier with a Fender decal on it.’”
And on that note, Norvell argues, “This [Standard Series] guitar was designed with the price thing removed, basically. So it was like, ‘What is the best guitar that we can make with this partner, in this facility, that would be worthy of the Fender name?’ The guardrails that almost keep something Squier were off, but we were still conscious of what was above it and what was below it and what would make sense. It really was a clean slate.”
With that in mind, the future of Squier still looks pretty sturdy, as it continues to be viewed as its own entity: “I think everything is a discussion. We’re open enough as a company and we listen enough to think about it. But there’s so much equity in the Squier brand name,” Norvell shares. “There are people that love Squier. There are people that proudly play Squier over Fender. Squier, on its own, is one of the biggest electric guitar brands, so it would be crazy to get rid of that.”
You can shop the brand’s full product range over at Fender. The Standard Series arrives in April 2025.
The post “We listen enough to think about it”: Fender product chief admits the brand considered replacing the entire Squier line with Fender-branded instruments appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
