Thread Number: 34072
/ Tag: Recent Vacuum Cleaners from past 20 years
What's in a brand? |
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Post# 369271 , Reply# 2   3/26/2017 at 15:34 (2,558 days old) by sptyks (Skowhegan, Maine)   |   | |
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Post# 369276 , Reply# 3   3/26/2017 at 16:39 (2,558 days old) by eurekaprince (Montreal, Canada)   |   | |
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You know, with the unique citizens of Vacuumland, there is a lot of "feeling" and "emotion" connected to a certain brand of vacuum cleaner. But most of the time these feelings of affection and loyalty are strongly connected to the brand of vacuum cleaner with which the "cleanerphile" grew up. In my case, I grew up with a blue Eureka Williams upright vacuum cleaner which set in motion my lifelong fascination with that particular brand. For others it's Hoover or Electrolux or Kirby. And the phenomenon is even evident with the new generation of vacuum enthusiasts - they may be hooked on newer brands like Dyson or even Dirt Devil - probably again the result of encountering one of these vacuums as a young toddler.
Unfortunately, for many of us the brandname we got hooked on no longer is connected to the company or quality product we came to know at the start of our fascination. Like so many others, the brandname Eureka has been sold and resold to so many different owners that a current vac branded with the name bears very little resemblance to the quality of the vacs coming off the original production line way back in the 1960's or 1970's. The familiar Hoover logo and the Sunbeam logo also appear on vacuums that don't reflect the product their loyal fans became attached to decades ago. In my case, I personally feel that if Eureka Williams had never been sold, its products today might closely resemble the quiet elegance of Miele's vacuums - solid, dependable, cleaners that get the job done with ease. When I see the Miele brandname, I get a similar "good feeling" of admiration and dependability as I used to have with Eureka. |
Post# 369299 , Reply# 5   3/27/2017 at 06:50 (2,558 days old) by eurekaprince (Montreal, Canada)   |   | |
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I think one must also take into consideration the location of manufacture of a certain vacuum. Decades ago, Americans could take pride in buying a Hoover made in North Canton, Ohio and Canadians could take pride in buying a unique Canadian Electrolux canister vac made in my home town of Montreal. Even British vac buyers could take pride in buying a Hoover made in the UK.
But with our current state of over-globalization, the local factories have been closed putting many fellow citizens out of work and leaving us all feeling abandoned by the corporations that used to employ thousands. So many of us have lost that national pride we used to feel when buying a product made in our countries. As a side note, when I worked in Japan many years ago, I learned how national pride went into the creation of Japanese consumer goods. The Japanese devotion to creating an excellent car or tv or vacuum cleaner had much to do with the feeling of being part of a proud nation. Which is why Toyota and Panasonic ended up taking American inventions and making them even better. Strange story related to this: Before the free trade agreement was signed between Canada and the USA, most US companies were forced to set up a Canadian factory to create similar products for the Canadian market. Eureka had a Canadian plant in Kitchener, Ontario (Onward Manufacturing) which was only a day's truck drive from head office in Bloomington, Illinois. When I first moved out of my parent's home in the early 1980's, they bought me a budget American-made Eureka upright while wintering (with thousands of other Canadians) in South Florida. But I wanted to add a bare floor brush to the tool set that came with the vac, and searched for one on a subsequent trip to the USA. Imagine my surprise when I saw "Made in Canada" embossed on the inside roof of the brush! Eureka must have decided to use their plant in Ontario to supply all the tools for their vacs! So whenever I found myself cleaning bare floors with my beloved Eureka, I had an extra feeling of pride knowing the brush was made in Canada 🇨🇦!!! |