It's fascinating how the internet spawns these discussions which in the past might only be held in company backhalls after a meeting.
I'm relatively new to the festool world, young at heart, physically and mentally in good to excellent shape for my age. Interests are broad ranging, music, photography, gardening, and now a recently resurrected passion/small business plan for doing kitchen installs, woodworking/repairs /restoring/painting..
I've always had a set of okay quality woodworking tools at my disposal. Recently when tooling up for a job I bought metabo 90mm and 125mm orbital sanders, and needed to pair them with a dust extractor. I looked at the Festool CT Midi compared to the other brands and even though it was 2X the price I just dived in. Size and design were the deciding factors.
The Festool brand means among other things great dust control. I worked a couple hours yesterday sanding down some outdoor furniture using the CT Midi. It was really surreal/disorienting to look at the workarea when I was finished, it was spotless! Only a few chips of paint laying loosely on the tabletop..I was stunned !!
The other tool I've been using lately the Carvex 420 cordless jigsaw absolute a speed demon for small jobs away from the "mains".
Regarding marketing, looking at price point versus value I think Festool is on the right track.
Marketing has to be backed up with quality, if it's not there it can backfire. At least here Festool is on the right track.
For people on a budget many tasks can be accomplished with cheaper tools. But if you need efficiency, are on stage in front of your employers, where every difficulty is seen by 100 people, an effective tool and a clean organized worksite is a very good investment and will get you future jobs.
As far as selling to a younger crowd, they have other priorities, need money for entertaining their girlfriends and social life, they should be out travelling seeing the world, then they are having to pay for their education, or first home.. So unless they have rich parents, or have a inheritance or a speciel situation, they just won't have the ready cash.
Then again if their workplace does speciel jobs that need the precision of high end tools, then they will likely be getting their hands on tools of Festool quality level. They just won't be buying then for their hobby workshop.
I would predict that someone working fulltime with high end projects within say a very short time of 3-5 years would discover Festool system tools. Efficiency is money in the field.
In Denmark I see alot of Festool track saw systems and the Kapex , also the drills CXS C12 are very popular. The CT dust control is becoming universal for pro's painters/fine carpenters/remodllers of all age groups. The very serious education system/apprentice system for the trades here might have something to do with that.
The older generation here is not as loose with their money as far as getting high end tools or gadgets of any type, they want to travel, spend time with their grandchildren, etc, there's alot of possibilties to choose from. Danes are realists, practical in the current economic climate somewhat tight with money. Festool here then is not in my opinion relagated to the rich older woodworkers..
Just a few thoughts.
Personally I've already outlined my shopping plans for my Festool setup to come. I'm fascinated by the system approach and the quality of the individual components. I'll be going for the MFT3 and the MFS closely followed by the OF 1010 next..