Innovating in ‘Golden Handcuffs’ Is Fender’s Winning Strategy
Brands with a storied legacy are always in a bit of a double bind. They must respect the history of what’s come before while pushing forward, to avoid stagnation. That’s a ‘problem’ in name only for Fender, a guitar brand with a 75-year history whose founder, Leo Fender, once said, “all artists are angels and it is our job to give them wings to fly.” Fender’s CMO Evan Jones calls operating within this tension “innovating within the golden handcuffs” and while he’s talking about the nature of the guitars that the brand creates, it’s just as applicable to the way Fender operates within the cultural sphere.
Evolving a legacy
Since the launch of the first Telecaster guitar in 1951 “there have really been two fundamental components at the heart of the brand that positioned it above and beyond anyone else in the category,” says Evan. “The first is a relentless commitment to innovating and improving the product for artists and for players. This year we celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Stratocaster and looking at the number of permutations and the way that we've innovated it, we call it ‘innovating within the golden handcuffs’ of one of the most iconic designs of all time. We found ways to make it forever adaptive to where music is going.”
“I think that’s true of the entirety of the Fender brand because from a product standpoint, our team has perfected the art and craft of making incredible instruments for artists and players but also making it more accessible to people who are just getting started. Spanning that entire range is key,” he adds.
The legacy then stems from the power of the product first but at the end of the day, the guitar - in all its iterations - is a tool that needs artists to make it come alive. That’s why the “other element of the legacy that's really important is a relentless commitment to artists and serving artists,” according to Evan. “Part of our mission as a company is to really fill the world with artists, both professional and aspiring.” Innovating on a legacy while never straying too far from its central principles has given the brand “credibility and authenticity, especially in today's environment where those qualities are often put to the test,” Evan explains.
What that product and brand presence looks to like in 2024 and beyond is an existential question Fender asks itself often. Because the world is more digital and more connected, the brand is embracing versatility. “There are more varied environments today, from screen to stage. That’s key for us and it drives a lot of innovation while at the same time it's as important for us to continue to celebrate legacy artists who help make the brand what it is and to identify, celebrate, and amplify the artists who are taking guitar to new places,” Evan says.
Perpetuating outdated, and untrue, ideas of who a guitar player is and what they look like holds zero appeal for Fender. Evan talks about the “younger, emerging artists disrupting norms and challenging conventions, making you think differently about what it means to be a guitar player.” Earlier this year, Gretsch (owned by Fender) released a limited edition Broadkaster Jr. with the rock supergroup of the moment boygenius, comprised of artists Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, and Lucy Dacus. There was some scepticism that an all-female band could sell guitars at volume, according to Evan. At the end, the limited run of the guitar was released directly through the band, proving immensely popular with consumers and selling out quickly post-launch. “I refuse to take for granted that a guitar player has to look a certain way, that they have to be an older male only playing a certain type of rock, because the guitar is probably one of the most versatile, diverse and widely adopted instruments in the world,” Evan states.
The Player II Series
With Fender’s latest release, the Player II Series, the brand is confidently innovating, adapting, and engaging with a new generation of musicians, whether they’re selling out Madison Square Garden (like boygenius did last year) or picking up the instrument for the first time in their bedroom. To communicate this idea as part of the Player II Series, Fender’s campaign addressed it with multiple touchpoints through partnerships with over 50 influencers who represent where guitar music is today, and where it’s heading tomorrow. Evan says that “respecting the legacy really just means standing on those pillars that have helped build the brand, and then not being afraid to look at them through the lens of each year that goes by to figure out how we keep the brand fresh and relevant.” Alongside the hero film and the product demo videos, Exploring the Player II Series, the campaign also features multiple parts like the Player II Sessions with artists Julien Baker, DIIV, Wallows, and April Kae.
“The Player II Series is a really important portion of our electric guitar line,” states Evan. Since the series’ first launch in 2018 it has become one of the brand’s most searched for and purchased models. “It really is the first Fender-branded electric guitar, so it's a step up from what a typical beginner is looking for. With the Player II Series guitars, we're targeting players in that 16 to about 34-year-old age demographic,” he adds. That ‘step-up’ is also symbolic in how it shifts the consumers’ engagement with the brand. With Player II, the brand is saying “this is your first Fender Stratocaster, and you are now part of the Fender journey.”
“The Player II Series is accessible. It's used by younger, emerging artists,” continues Evan. “It also gives us an excuse to really focus on artists who are really at the edge of changing and leading where guitar is going and what guitar music looks like.” Fender’s ‘Next’ programme is one of the ways that the brand is making good on its promise. For the past five years, the brand has selected 25 artists to support and empower, with a number going to sell millions of albums, gain international acclaim, and win prestigious awards. People like Sam Fender, Omar Apollo, Wet Leg, Blu DeTiger, Phoebe Bridgers, Ed Maverick, MAY-A, Japanese Breakfast, Anly, Madison Cunningham, the Black Pumas and more.
The relationship between Fender and the musicians is symbolic and as the brand continues to grow its social following, it’s slowly becoming a platform for musicians too. Evan explains: “We're in a position to operate like an amplifier to these artists as well. We think it's a pretty virtuous relationship where, hopefully, the artists feel they get a bump from being a part of a Fender campaign, and we get a bump from having the artists being a part of our storytelling.”
Guitar’s shifting status
The way that the guitar is used in music production has changed from the classic rock setting, necessitating a change in the product. Evan notes the familiar paradigm of a band. “You've got a lead guitar player, a rhythm guitar player, maybe a singer that plays guitar, and a bass player.” But the guitar has never been more free to roam across genres as it is today in a cultural moment that feels entirely genre-less, with artists opting for concept albums or a redefinition of their sound as they see fit. “The guitar is now being used across nearly every genre that's out there, whether it's EDM, hip-hop, house, pop music, all the way to alt rock and new forms of country,” he adds.
Evan has seen directly how the “bulk of the people that we work with and players that we see are really defying convention and shifting across genres, and tied to that is probably one of the biggest changes has been the democratisation of digital tools and access to ways to capture record, produce, share and distribute music.” What starts as a musical-based bedroom exploration can lead to a Grammy down the line, like in the case of a certain sister-brother duo: the singer Billie Eilish and the producer Phineas. “You no longer have to be a professional who can afford to go into a studio, you can produce on your laptop, and then have that become a global hit.”
The shifting landscape is giving “the guitar and the bass more opportunities to infiltrate music. Somebody who's a beat maker might be sampling beats for five years, and then realise all of those beats were made with a bass guitar, and chances are 90% of those bass guitar licks were Fender guitars, and then that's a gateway for them to buy their first Fender bass, or Fender guitar - which seamlessly integrates with digital production tools,” Evan explains.
On and offline stages
The brand is rapidly expanding its thinking about the stage and live performances. “It's great to play live, we encourage it! Which is one of the reasons why, with Player II, we wanted to focus on the ‘Make a Scene’ social series to show artists doing just that.” Outside of the stage, musicians are making a name for themselves on TikTok with Evan saying “we know the vast majority of how people are distributing their music is in short videos where it's a burst of creativity, and that's the stage too. So we've really just tried to map the brand to all of those use occasions.”
It’s not just TikTok where the brand’s attention is directed. All the different platforms are home to a different kind of Fender customer. “If you look at our custom shop business, for example, which is the most premium guitars that we make, there is a very organic relationship that our master builders have with the customers, and that's primarily through Instagram and Facebook. That demographic is probably, not surprisingly, a lot older, a lot more male, a lot more tenured, but that's a great use of that social media platform, because it's a great way for our master builders to have personal relationships with buyers.” The brand’s TikTok channel launched only three years ago and has quickly grown to three million followers with Evan thinking “there’s really no end in sight” because “TikTok is really great at sharing and propagating music with a younger audience.” Then there’s YouTube of course - “one of the best places in the world for long-form content and information discovery which is why we are always prioritising that platform,” says Evan. And Instagram is “a general vehicle for the visual and cultural representation of the guitar.”
He explains, “Social has actually been a really big driver for us. When I started in 2015, we had less than a million followers across all of our social channels. We now have over 17 million followers, and it's much younger, much more diverse. It's much more female, much more engaged, and it's way more global than it used to be.”
The tension of preserving a legacy and a commitment to expanding the category of guitarist and guitar-based music means that Fender’s goals for the future don’t sound grandiose, but they are confident. The steady path forward looks like “drawing even tighter connections between the artist, the brand, and the community, through both the artist followers and Fender’s followers. We have some exciting ideas heading into 2025 for how to do that.”
