Evan Jones was in an enviable position eight years ago when he arrived as chief marketing officer of Fender Music company, taking over a brand famous for serving rock ’n’ roll legends. With that came the burden of growing a brand that was already iconic for a company that already had the highest market share of any musical instrument marketer.

Few brands in any category are more legendary than Fender. Its Stratocaster guitars have been used by Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton, among many others.

But with legend comes legacy and a bit of doubt, including the idea that popular music is moving away from electric guitars.

In the latest episode of the Marketer’s Brief podcast, Jones talks about how he keeps Fender relevant, including new product launches, a TikTok following of 2.7 million riding the wave of billions of #GuitarTok videos and stepping up advertising.

Fender also benefits from perhaps the greatest brand placement machines ever—live performances and music videos.

“We estimate we’ve got somewhere between 80% and 85% stage share with the Fender brand across all artists using guitars, basses and amplifiers on stage,” Jones said. “So a large part of what we’ve been focused on is really amplifying those relationships.”

That includes coming out with special editions of Stratocasters with such artists as Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine and Juanes and identifying the top 25 emerging guitar artists each year.

A major part of product launch and marketing planning, Jones said, is to reflect on the brand’s history and diversity.

“One of the things that we’re really focused [on],” he said, “is opening up the aperture of guitar to more players than ever. Some of this comes from research that we’ve done over the years that shows us while some people might believe that the electric guitar is something that is relegated to classic rock and a bygone era, the opposite in fact is truth. The reality is that the guitar is being used by more artists and more genres, in more interesting ways than ever.”

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For a company with a long history, there are always bumps. One was the ownership of the company by the CBS TV network in the 1980s, followed by employees buying Fender back to “right the ship, in terms of the quality and level of instruments,” Jones said. The current private-equity ownership group that runs the business, he said, “was connected to the Fender brand through a family relationship” with founder Leo Fender.

And it’s Fender who still ultimately provides something of a guide star for the brand, Jones said.

“He believed that artists were angels,” Jones said, “and it was his job to give them wings to fly.”