I would disagree Lee. Sure, they're offering N scale specific advertising, but marketing, contrary to popular understanding, is much more than just advertising. In the modern world marketing also includes product choice and design, pricing, distribution, and after-sales customer service. A considerable effort of modern marketing is made to develop brand loyalty to defray the cost of future marketing.
Let's take pricing. A manufacturer can either sell his product at a lower price to a larger audience that can afford it, for X return on investment, or the manufacturer can sell his product at a higher price to a more affluent but smaller size market for the same ROI. It's a conscious choice marketers make, if they're worth their salt professionally. Or... a manufacturer can either design a product that has the features the prospective buyer wants, which helps the product sell itself, or the manufacturer can ignore market wants and then he has to work harder on the back end (sales) to move his product.
Sure, as a distributor Walthers is finally using technology to an advantage and getting the advertising thing under control, but as a manufacturer in N scale they're sorely missing a number of points. I think one of the most frustrating points for modelers is the product development part, where modelers have some pretty strong opinions about what should be industry standards and when a manufacturer ignores that want, the criticism starts but, funnily, it never makes it to the manufacturer. Obvious input on product development is deflected as criticism.
One thing I have noticed in model railroading, and this may go to the personality types that are attracted to the hobby, but critics aren't really good at criticizing and manufacturers aren't receptive to criticism. This is a very small hobby where that 6 degrees is pretty small, more like 2 or 3. I've noticed manufacturers aren't openly responsive to criticism. I say 'open' for a reason. Sure, manufacturers seem to accept criticism from those closest to them, their 'friends', but allowing only input from those close to you only serves to soften the criticism, not the blow of criticism. Wally isn't opening the gates and asking for input.
