Originally posted by cali92rs They are able to charge those prices because they are established as premium brands. Can Pentax really get away with the same game?
You ask any joe schmoe off the street about the brands you listed above, from ages 6-60 and they can identify those brands, their logos, what they sell, etc. You do the same with Pentax, and they either say, what is a Pentax, or "Pentax is still around?".
Originally posted by luftfluss Designer clothes have cachet. Pentax is dad's camera collecting dust in the attic, along with Pivot Pool and Simon.
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Apple built a viable alternative to WinPC featuring a more stable, eye-pleasing,appliance-like user experience and excellent industrial design. Not mention memorable marketing and being in the on the ground floor of the burgeoning home computer revolution.
Abercrombie has been bleeding for a while.
Nike was built on the feet of the world's biggest star.
Pentax is none of this.
Originally posted by boriscleto You forgot Beats by Dre. A business built almost entirely on image. Apple just paid $3 billion for it.
These are all good points. Those other brands have much stronger identities and clearly invest in marketing…in the US at least. I don't know how Pentax is perceived overseas, particularly in Japan or China. It could be very different. Buick, AFAIK, is a well-regarded brand in China.
The Beats example is very interesting. From nothing to a $3 billion acquisition in a handful of years. And I haven't heard a lot of good about the product. But the marketing is great and the product design is fresh, so it's worked. Traditional headphone makers like Koss, Bose, and others are likely jealous. So I still stand behind the whole point of my post, to counter the argument that people won't pay a premium for design. They will, and now that it's up to Pentax marketing to create a want.
As someone else said, all DSLRs are good these days, so there's no way that Pentax is going to increase market share by being 3% better and/or 5% cheaper than the other guy. And they certainly can't out-Nikon Nikon or out-Canon Canon, so they absolutely have to go about it another way. Interesting design is certainly a way worth investigating.
Is it, like the K-01 before it, priced to high? Maybe, it depends on how well Pentax can hit their target market and make the K-S1 an object of desire, not just a box of specifications.
And honestly, the K-mount is both a blessing and a curse for the K-S1 and the K-01. Without it, the designers would have had much more freedom to make a camera of the moment; a K-01 that's half as thick is basically the Leica T.