[mattdm]

Their Pentaxphotogallery is easily one of the best.

It's good (flash-dependency aside), but has the feel of a glossy brochure -- produced once, and meant to be looked through once and then discarded. It's not designed to be somewhere people keep coming back to (except on the submitting and voting side) -- which is kind of unfortunate, because it could
be that kind of site.

[noblepa]

Here in the Pacific North west, I watch the ads and have for years due to the passing
interest in photography. It is now common to see a a full page print ad in the sunday paper and no (zero, nada) space assigned to any pentax product. the usual lay out is 25% of the page to each of the big guys, 25% to various accessories and other, and 25% to 'also ran' brands---aa couple lesser brands of SLR equipment, but the word Pentax will never make the page.

On the other hand, recently and very recently, Shutterbug HAS been doing some innovative advertizing featuring Pentax, which includes some pop ups on the internet so maybe the ship is starting to turn.

The same thing happens here. The largest camera store in the area, called Dodd's Camera & Video (they're the ones all the pros go to in Cleveland) regularly has full or half-page ads in the local sunday paper. Before Christmas, they ran double page ads. Not one mention of Pentax, although they do carry them in their stores.

Another camera store told me (about a year ago, before Hoya), that he almost never heard from or saw his Pentax rep. He had no Pentax gear in stock, but could order it, if I really wanted something. I was in his store a couple of months ago, with my K10D. He was impressed and said maybe he should order one or two to have on display.

A lot of people on this and other forums loudly proclaim that Pentax absolutely HAS to add this feature or that to their cameras, if the brand is to survive. I beg to differ. I think that Pentax has a very competitive product right now. What they need is advertising. I haven't seen any Pentax advertising on TV or newspapers for years and then it seemed to be only their P & S cameras.

When I was in high school, in the sixties, I would hang around camera stores a lot. They usually had a couple of showcases full of Pentax cameras (mostly Spotmatics). On the top shelf, they had a few Nikon F's or Canon's. They also had a full line of Pentax lenses, flashes and accessories. Now, you're lucky to find a camera store that even has a single Pentax camera in stock.

Pentax, if you're reading this, a "if you build it, they will come" attitude isn't going to work. You've got to re-establish the Pentax name as a value leader. There is a whole new generation of photographers out there, many of whom have never even heard of Pentax.

I believe that one of the reasons that C & N are featured in the newspaper ads is that those companies pay part of the cost. Perhaps Pentax should consider trying this.

Paul Noble

[spyglass]

Well at least I am not the only one that loves the product but is fearful of the direction at the helm. Hopefully there is change in the near future, as Ben seemed to indicate.
If pentax could package their image under one recognizable polished umbrella it would help the public to see it as a solid recognizable player. They need to designate area reps that are responsible for and over see geographical areas (break it right down into functional zones). Then they should create an incentive program to the people in the trenches on the front line. Create a point / prize club for retailer / their staff. Sell a Pentax get some club points.... sell a Canon or Nikon get.... nothing? (young pimple faced kid at Future shop suddenly forgets how to pronounce name of several competitive camera). [This approach has been done time and time again in the electrical wholesale industry with proven results]
Imagine if Pentax ran a few ads like the Mac vs PC (what would it cost to shoot that add, no props, 2 guys - simple but very effective.
I personally would like to see a commercial like this:

Scene of world in degrade, colours slowing desaturating to gray, group of scientists / high tech people going below ground to a futurist laboratory. Working years forging forward. They emerge above ground (very advanced in being) to find a near dead looking world. ( the ground could have a few old semi detroyed cameras laying here and there. They pull out their creation (a K10, etc) and as they start snapping pictures of the world around them, the pictures they take freeze and fall to the ground revealing the colour behind. Then one of the guys would say "go to burst mode" and the camera would emit a force like flow (like a lighthouse cutting through dense fog, but sound like a machine gun) and the whole grey scene would shatter like glass revealing the colorful Eden like world. They could end with a saying like "Pentax - find your Eden" or "The world just looks better through Pentax - the next logical step" Scene ends with the group walking into the scene snaping various plants, trees, etc that would jump to life. The last tech guy, closest to view, turns, and all you can see is into his camera. You hear the shutter release and your TV screen goes brilliant white.

I would pump this add out on TV & in the movie theaters (most seem to run ads now and it would look great on a big screen). I would follow this commercial with a series of commercials. Like a mini mini series. Use the same characters so the audience get familiar to them. The guy that says "go to burst mode" would have cool googles no that looked like Pentax pancake lenses (hell even toss Hoya filters on the end of them)



Spyglass

[thibs]

IMO their camera dedicated sites are well done: K10D.co.jp K100D.co.jp etc...
A pity they are only available in japanese and english.

Edit: Their Digiichi website isn't bad at all IMO but again: japanese and english only and that Stupid name...
Maybe cool in Japan but for the rest of the world DigiIchi sounds like low-end kids toys.