August 10, 2020 I Supply
Fender Brings Dealer Meeting Experience Online
Tammy Van Donk
Fender today announced a new slate of products for the remainder of 2020 via a global online meeting experience for dealers worldwide. With new additions across nearly every category – from electrics, acoustics and amplifiers to pedals, Squier, accessories and apparel – Fender continues its commitment to product innovation and serving the needs of players creating music during this time. In light of COVID-19 restrictions, which caused the cancellation of the annual Summer NAMM show in Nashville, Tennessee, and the brand’s decision to forgo participation in Winter NAMM 2021 (itself now canceled), Fender has created a private interactive portal for dealers to explore executive and product video and visuals via a user interface.
“The idea is if you think about it in terms of if we had had Summer NAMM in Nashville or even Winter NAMM in Anaheim, dealers come to the event and they get three or four really great days of interacting with us,” said Tammy Van Donk, executive vice president of sales, America and EMEA, Fender, adding that the lack of these shows now, “really drives us to start thinking more creatively of how are we going to reach our dealer network and introduce new product. So that’s really what the online event is about because we’ve got some really cool product for the rest of this year. We’ve just got to find a way to be able to get in front of our network.”
According to Van Ronk, this platform has been in the works at Fender for some time. “About five years ago, I really started working on developing a dealer portal that was robust enough to where a dealer can sign in,” she said. “It’s private portal. They could sign in, they can get information about their accounts. They can get product information, we can send updates about what’s going on with our business. So we actually use that platform.”
