I can count the technology companies who are excellent at marketing to consumers on one hand:

• Apple is the best marketer of any company in any business. I’m going to chalk the negative last few months — Gizmodo, Ellen, etc. —  up to poor reactions to events outside their control. In general, Apple has put on a master class in marketing anything over the last 10 years.
• Research in Motion has done a tremendous job marketing its Blackberries. That they still hold the lead in smart phone market share is nothing short of astounding given how much more press Apple — and lately, Android — gets.
• Vizio has been terrific at marketing flat-panels. Better than any other company in the category.
• Acer has come on strong marketing netbooks recently. Better than any other company in the category.
• The Flip video camera has been marketed very well. The Flip is now owned by Cisco, so I would expect the quality of marketing to come back to earth.

And that’s about it. Every other consumer electronics has not really benefited from its marketing efforts. Many companies in our business have been seriously hurt by their marketing outreach — or lack thereof.

The stunning thing is it’s not difficult to market consumer electronics. Consumers are highly interested, and there’s a rabid media — mainstream and online — that follows the industry’s every move.

It’s really hard to be this bad communicating the value of products that everyone is interested.

Somehow, tech makers are.