How does this sort of thing happen? Seen worse?

Simple explanation...

Sig didn't publish that catalog.

HK didn't publish that infamous catalog, either.

They're not publishing houses, they're gun manufacturers.

They farm that stuff out to companies that actually do that full time. Same with their magazine advertising. And often those companies employe people who aren't as familiar with firearms as, oh, we are.

Obiously Sig has people who have insight into the production, and who approve it, but they don't have people standing over ever step in the process.

When I was associate editor of American Rifleman Magazine back in the early 1990s we interacted quite a bit with representatives of the various companies over placement of advertising.

We virtually never actually talked to an S&W, Colt, Ruger, Browning, etc., employee about that sort of stuff. We talked to the representatives of the advertising firms that S&W, Colt, Ruger, Browning, etc., hired to take care of that for them.

The text error could have crept in at just about any point in the production process, from initial copy to final boards.

The HK photo error? That was screwed from the very start.
 
The text error could have crept in at just about any point in the production process, from initial copy to final boards.

In the case of the Sig catalogue the mistake was featured on the specs table as well as down the side of the page in thumbnail type graphics, so it wasn't a last minute typo and before anything like that is published it should be signed off by the paying company on the very final draft, so someone in Sig did mess up.
 
I didn't say it was a last minute typo.

I said it could have crept in at the last minute.

I worked in newspapers, magazines, and advertising for years, and one great truth of the publishing industry is that NOTHING is ever final until it's in the customer's hands.

Finding a typo on an interior page is what the purchasing company (Sig) pays other companies to do. As I noted above, Sig doesn't employ a team of proofreaders. They pay a company that has those services.

Once one of these companies greenlights a project, it's not uncommon for them not to see it again until the proof mockup review. After that they likely don't see it again until it's been published.

Errors are the responsibility of the company that employs those people.

I have no doubt that there's some serious discussion going on between Sig and the production company about how big a reduction they're going to accept in the final payment from Sig.

While it's a nice concept that the "buck always belongs to the highest guy on the totem pole," that's not realistic.
 
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The ad agency and the company probably shared taking the bite on the H&K ad. The gun company's ad manager should have been there to oversee the photo shoot. Also, too often the ad manager is some kid out of college who really hasn't learned squat about the company's product line.

Still, he should have and probably did run that ad by a dozen guys at the plant for approval and, to a man, they probably all scrutinized the ad copy without really looking that closely at the photo.

It certainly wouldn't have been the first time that happened. Photographers shouldn't have to know how to load the magazine. That's why the gun company guy should be there overseeing the shoot.
 
Meh. It happens. And it happens in every industry.

There is typically plenty of legal "boilerplate" notes within the catalog to cover them for errors / omissions.

Most people don't even notice. Sharp people notice all the time.;) But you tend to shrug it off and mentally just substitute the data point that makes sense.

It might say a lot about the company that makes the product, or it might not say anything about them. Thats up to you to decide. For medium-sized foreign multi-national company that does most of it's business in the USA, I wouldn't care as long as the products are living up to reputation in more telling areas.
 
My girlfriend works in the catalog industry. She tells me the cover photo is usually the very last thing they decide on, and picked by the creative/artistic types and not necessarily by the people who know the product.

Her company once came very close to putting a photo of Georgia Tech football players holding their helmets up over their heads on a catalog for Notre Dame, somebody just found the photo with the gold helmets and assumed it was Notre Dame. The kicker is that "somebody" worked not for the catalog production company but for the vendor!
 
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