Lou Diamond Phillips playing a Teton Guitar. Photo courtesy of Teton Guitars.
For those of us who love looking for product placement in movies and TV shows, here is a new product to keep an eye out for. Teton Guitars, a young brand of guitars based out of Idaho Falls, has recently managed to get its products onto the set of Netflix’s original series, The Ranch.
Teton Guitars has only been in business for 7 years. However, its parent company, Chesbro Music, has been in business for over a century and has years of expertise in manufacturing and selling guitars.
Tana Stahn, CEO of Chesbro Music, landed Teton Guitars a place on The Ranch through a long-time connection. A co-worker at Chesbro Music left in the 80’s to get married to a man who worked in the product placement and advertising industry. She came back to Idaho Falls to catch up with Stahn last year and the conversation turned to how to get Teton Guitars into some kind of film or show as product placement. Stahn’s friend talked to her husband, Tony Engedal, founder of Premier Entertainment Services, to see what he could do.
“Within 48 hours, I’m thinking, I heard back from her husband and he said, ‘We can get this on something,’” said Stahn.
After sending two guitars to Engedal, one of them ended up on the porch outside the main house of Netflix’s The Ranch.
Engedal has been emailing Teton Guitars with periodic updates, but because Engedal is very busy with his business, his emails are typically concise and to the point. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t interesting.
“[It’s] always a surprise to see what he has in store when you open up the email,” said Neil Harward, Art Director at Teton Guitars.
Harward and Stahn received an email saying that Lou Diamond Philips, currently one of the stars of Netflix’s other original series, Longmire, had been on the set of The Ranch and had played their guitar.
“That was pretty exciting,” said Stahn.
Because Teton Guitars is not under an advertising contract with Premier Entertainment Services, they really had no say in what show their product was placed in, but Harward said having it on the set of The Ranch is a stepping stone to placing their product in other series in the future.
“Just having it placed on the porch and someone playing it is the purpose that it’s intended, so I appreciate that a lot,” said Stahn.