Over a year has gone by since Clayton Homes and their marketing company launched their new image campaign. It was touted in part with the video published on YouTube, which is shown below.
The screen capture above is from the Clayton video, below.
As of 2:02 PM ET, on 11.12. 2018, Clayton’s video reflects some 2,979 views.
By way of comparison, Curbed and The Verge has a video about modular “homes of the future” with 1,362,208 views.
Rephrased, that means the Ford sponsored Curbed/The Verge video gets 457.27 times more views then the Clayton Homes video for the same timeframe.
But There’s More…
As the Daily Business News on MHProNews alone among MH trade media spotlighted in a sensible, systemic, and evidenced-based manner, HUD Code manufactured home shipments have been struggling to get a tepid growth-rate.
Last year, MHProNews was alone in reporting that Clayton and Cavco were both growing at a clip slower than that of the industry at large. Fact-checks often reveal the evidence of a pattern where much smaller independents often outperform in growth their giant rivals.
But even the growth of some independents is not enough to lift the industry to anywhere near its historic norms.
The Warning Signs…
Who else in MHVille has hammered away at the fact that if you subtract out the new home shipments to land-lease communities with many of those units being used for rentals, not sales – that the industry has been essentially flat for the last several years?
National New HUD Code Manufactured Home Production Data Summary, September 2018 Analysis
Recall the fanfare last year, when Clayton announced their program. The proof is in the performance. It doesn’t seem to be too strong, based upon video views, new HUD Code manufactured home shipment data, which of course reflects new home orders. The ‘leadership’ of Clayton, which purportedly dominates the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI), has been tested on this issue, and has arguably been found wanting.
Proof Once Again, Objective Analysis and Fact-Checks Matter
If you read our analysis from last September, you’ll see that we showed the gamut, for and against their campaign. But we revealed the concerns about the effort.
Clayton Homes “Have It Made” Campaign, Manufactured Housing Pros React, Initial Analysis
One year later, MHProNews was proven correct again. Keep in mind that these are the same people who pushed the “new class of homes” which MHProNews warned could be a “Trojan Horse.” More on that another time.
But the trend for objective, clear thinkers who follow MHProNews faithfully should be clear.
As industry professionals watch the calendar move towards the end of the year, isn’t it time to ask the hard questions, look at facts and the evidence like this report, or those below, and make adjustments? “We Provide, You Decide.” ## (News, analysis, and commentary.)
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Like millions of others, during my high school days and at the university, computer geeks used the acronym, GIGO. “Garbage In, Garbage Out .” It simply means that if your input is bad, then the output is bad. Similarly, when using logic, if the premise is flawed, then the conclusion is flawed too.
