[Serkevan]

John Wanamaker notoriously said "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half." Any model that is focused on older models like print media and brick and mortar stores is probably too backward looking to succeed. Even stores like Best Buy are struggling these days (prior to COVID) -- folks go in, look at electronics equipment and then order on line. I have seen it a lot. Matching the pricing -- particularly if you live in a state which isn't collecting sales tax on online purchases is really hard. Keeping the marketing budget low reduces risk and makes it less likely that you have a spectacular flop on your hands. It also means that there is a ceiling on how high your models can go.

With regard to the K-new, I expect more details to come out a week or two before release. I really do think that makes a lot of sense. Releasing all the details of the coming camera or even most of them three months before it comes out could easily mean that excitement for it crests long before it is available. The goal should be to keep the product present in our minds, while still keeping some mystery about the exact details of it. Steve Jobs was the master of this. His product announcements always seemed to come at the perfect time, products were ready to release soon after, and there was always some surprising "One thing more..." feature that excited people. I don't expect this to be at that level, but that should be the general idea to emulate.

Amazon and the like (but mostly Amazon) have disrupted the scene a lot - not necessarily in a good way, but online purchases are just so prevalent nowadays that it's no surprise brick and mortar stores are on the way out (or at least losing their prominence). I would like to have Pentax product available in vivo, but oh well.

About marketing, Jobs was very very good at it. Heck, Apple thrives nowadays exclusively because of just how well they marketed the use of tools as "an experience" in a walled garden of hand-holdingness . It's unreal how their product releases always make a splash and make the customers think that they really want need that new iPhone...

And yeah, agreed that dropping all the specs now is a terrible idea - look at Canon: everyone is excited at the R5 because
-A) it has 8K video which means at least a 40MP sensor with very fast readout (but no actual numbers are given)
-B) The grip. It has the grip of a 5D, which is very comfortable, and that's already a reason to be excited about it. And then people say the biggest APS-C viewfinder, ever, isn't an exciting feature... . I'm already drooling at a K-1iii with a 0.8x OVF.

[RobA_Oz]

About marketing, Jobs was very very good at it. Heck, Apple thrives nowadays exclusively because of just how well they marketed the use of tools as "an experience" in a walled garden of hand-holdingness . It's unreal how their product releases always make a splash and make the customers think that they really want need that new iPhone...

Actually, Jobs was good at promoting (a subset of marketing, I’m sure you know). Samsung keeps their enthusiasts excited about their new phones by getting online geek reviewers to dribble about them, and that, again I’m sure you know, is how Sony and the other camera companies do their main promotions.

Ricoh, on the other hand, seems to rely on people like us to do their promotion.

[Serkevan]

Actually, Jobs was good at promoting (a subset of marketing, I’m sure you know). Samsung keeps their enthusiasts excited about their new phones by getting online geek reviewers to dribble about them, and that, again I’m sure you know, is how Sony and the other camera companies do their main promotions.

Ricoh, on the other hand, seems to rely on people like us to do their promotion.

Yeah, of course, I just used the generic term. Sony in particular seems to target the measurebators with the ever expanding list of features and very high numbers everywhere* on the spec sheet . They also have a lot of "ambassadors" posting on instagram and the like with a million tags just to show off the gear.


*Except, until very recently, the raw bit depth, because "crushed shadows" was their new black

[Kunzite]

Ricoh, on the other hand, seems to rely on people like us to do their promotion.

But we're too busy with nitpicking and blaming them for every slight or imaginary issue.

[BarneyL]

Ricoh, on the other hand, seems to rely on people like us to do their promotion.

If that's the case, then we're truly doomed.

[ThorSanchez]

But we're too busy with nitpicking and blaming them for every slight or imaginary issue.

To get 100% positive marketing you have to pay for it. Ricoh won't, so they'll have to live with 75% positive, 10% negative, and 15% shocked and disappointed that anyone would post the negative 10%.

[Kunzite]

To get 100% positive marketing you have to pay for it. Ricoh won't, so they'll have to live with 75% positive, 10% negative, and 15% shocked and disappointed that anyone would post the negative 10%.

75% positive? For Pentax? Where?

[ThorSanchez]

75% positive? For Pentax? Where?

Here. The vast majority of threads and posts on this site are talking about using and buying and collecting and figuring out and wishing and speculating about Pentax cameras. There are many thousands of posts of people showing their best photos made with Pentax cameras. The percentage of posts complaining and whining and moaning, even if you use a very broad definition of those terms, is very small. 75% is probably under-representing positive content considerably.

Just pick a random forum, and almost every thread is a reasonable, decent, civil discussion of people using and liking Pentax cameras.

[c.a.m]

Just pick a random forum, and almost every thread is a reasonable, decent, civil discussion of people using and liking Pentax cameras.

Indeed. I would say that Pentax Forums is the world's most comprehensive and authoritative site for Pentax gear and its use in creating terrific pictures. It's a great resource for anyone looking for insight into the Pentax camera brand.

Certainly, there are dimensions of speculation and debate, and the occasional snipe or snark, but the content is overwhelmingly positive, productive, and informative.

But, this might be a topic for another thread, perhaps.

- Craig

[normhead]

Pick any thread where Pentax has announced new product, and you get all the complainers talking about what Pentax should have done and why what they did isn't good enough. To the point where folks like myself just ignore the thread. Usually after stating my objections.

[monochrome]

I was shocked a year ago or so, when I went to London to shoot a wedding. In the paper was a half page ad in the local news featuring a K-70 package on sale published by Camera Canada.. They listed a number of items as being in stock, but I din't have time to drop in.

I've also talked to a store owner in North Bay, who was obviously a long term fan, but couldn't keep Pentax product in his shop. Apparently Pentax won't give him even 30 days, he has to pay for everything up front.

So it's clearly a store by store thing.

But as has been said over an over, I'd like Pentax to increase their presence, but only if it results in enough sales to cover the cost without raising prices.

Every one speaks of this as if it would be free. OK, look at crowd funding. How much would each of you be willing to contribute to increase Pentax's market presence? We could start a campaign. Buy a bunch of stuff, Put it in stores etc, see if we can get some thing going.

My point being, it requires investment. Investment Pentax has good reason to think they won't get back. But if anyone would like to set up a crowd funded trial to prove them wrong, I'll be glad to help out however I can.

Who's in?

Let's see who seriously believes investing in marketing for Pentax would be a profitable idea.

”You” in the following response does not mean Normhead - it means the thread participants.

Dealer Financing is a substantial part of what we’re calling Marketing. If you think about it, Ricoh Imaging N.A. must commit capital equal to the value of all the product stocked by all the Dealers under a dealer Financing Agreement in all of North America and not just for s short time - they have to allow the Dealers to “carry” that capital as the stock is rotated through sales, so it is a permanent capital commitment. Then, if the items don’t sell in twelve months, they have to take the unsold item back at no expense to the Dealer (or support substantial price discounting to avoid having to accept the returns, such as they do with B&H and Adorama).

How much capital do you think the sum total of all the Pentax cameras and lenses held as inventory For sale by all the Dealers in North America at any moment is, and do you really think Ricoh would earn anything on the cost of that capital?

Nikon, Canon and Sony finance Dealer stock. Pentax can’t get in stores because they don’t finance Dealer stock. This isn’t new. Pentax has been tightening the terms of its Dealer Agreements for decades. This has been going on since the late 70’s.

[Kunzite]

Here. The vast majority of threads and posts on this site are talking about using and buying and collecting and figuring out and wishing and speculating about Pentax cameras. There are many thousands of posts of people showing their best photos made with Pentax cameras. The percentage of posts complaining and whining and moaning, even if you use a very broad definition of those terms, is very small. 75% is probably under-representing positive content considerably.

Just pick a random forum, and almost every thread is a reasonable, decent, civil discussion of people using and liking Pentax cameras.

No way. You could say, most threads and posts are neutral - but positive, no chance.
Actually I'd be surprised if there are more positive than negative posts, at least in the News and Rumors section.The problem with counting them though is that we'd start arguing about classification... say, this thread, the first page: one positive post (#2), one negative (#15), the others I'd classify as neutral.

This isn't about not saying bad things about Pentax, nor about being happy with your pictures (even thought that's most important for a photographer). Is about creating hype and excitement about Pentax. And we completely lack that.
What do we have instead? People diverting attention to various real (but not relevant in that context) and imaginary issues. Like when Ricoh Imaging confirms the camera for this year, that's bad because they didn't fix the NA marketing

[Serkevan]

This isn't about not saying bad things about Pentax, nor about being happy with your pictures (even thought that's most important for a photographer). Is about creating hype and excitement about Pentax. And we completely lack that.

Speak for yourself ! I hooked up my cousin with my old K-7 (One of us! One of us!) and whenever anyone asks about my K-1 (it's happened) I strongly recommend it. I mentioned somewhere that at a wedding I gave the 7 photographers present the entire sales pitch, although it was mostly cross tilt LCD plus hyper manual mode. They were impressed, unsurprisingly

[normhead]

Nikon, Canon and Sony finance Dealer stock. Pentax can’t get in stores because they don’t finance Dealer stock. This sin’t new. Pentax has been tightening the terms of its Dealer Agreements for decades. This has been going on since the late 70’s.

RIght now, I'm guessing Sony, Nikon and Canon are wishing they didn't finance dealer stock.

As for the hype, there's lots of hype around the coming 21 td. around my house. DPR and many other sites are directly responsible to killing any Pentax hype you might get going. John Riley over at Ephotozone has become the guy for information about Pentax product.

That's especially necessary since Optical limits has pretty much left Pentax behind.

It's nice to read someone who just tells you about the cameras and lenses without inserting idiotic opinions. Of course, no one is as good as the forum's own Bdery, but the anti-Pentax crowd don't see his work.

[robbiec]

Don't forget Gary Wolstenholme at Ephotozine or Mike Tomkins at Imaging-Resource

Hmm, have I become at last a fully paid up Pentaxian?, nah, I might have passed probation Patience Padawan