We stumbled upon an interesting article from USA Today that gives an overview of some Fender’s digital strategy.  The No. 1 guitar manufacturer is embracing the Rock Band phenomenon (we noticed this trend in 2008) by trying to bridge the gap between the casual gamer and the beginner guitarist.  The article is also interesting in that in gives some industry-wide figures on sales for last year.

Fender has licensed it’s iconic Fender Strat shape to Rock Band owner Harmonix/MTV so that every time some straps on a guitar in Rock Band they’re playing a Fender.   Fender is also making it easy for gamers to make the leap over to the real thing with products like the Fender G-DEC 3 amplifier.  The G-DEC 3 is pretty much a “band in box” that comes pre-loaded with 100 music tracks in various styles for jamming.  The G-DEC 3 can also be hooked up to your computer allowing you to add your own music and further customize it to your tastes.

Fender is also launching eJAMMING AUiiDO, a online collaboration tool for musicians that is supposed to allow you to play with other musicians through the internet.  We haven’t tried it out yet but we’ve seen this approach before and have heard mixed results.

Most interesting to us was some of the industry metrics.  It turns out “Industrywide, guitar sales — which averaged about 3 million units sold for each of the past several years — fell 20% last year, according to Brian Majeski, editor of the Music Trades. “It was a significant decline, and we attribute that to the economy.”  However Fender’s sales were flat year over year, in part due to this new strategy of embracing gamers and the internet.

Source: USA Today “Fender hopes to turn virtual guitarists into real rockers”