[monochrome]

Ricoh has pretty much given up on the United States as a market. They are content to sell whatever they can through a number of online sellers like Amazon, B and H, and Adorama, but maybe because they don't understand the US market, they aren't willing to invest much otherwise.

Certainly, I don't know that getting Tony Northup a camera would be in my top twenty-five of things to do, if I were going to invest in marketing Pentax as a brand here.

Honestly, that really doesn't sound any different to the UK. We have a few major Pentax dealers - SRS, Wex etc. - and a few smaller dealers who carry a reduced number of items, or will get stock in to order. And then we have Amazon UK. Similar to Precision in the USA, there's a third party service official service operation, Johnsons Photopia Ltd., and Ricoh's European hub is in France.

I don't feel like Ricoh has given up on the UK... it's been this way since I switched to Pentax back in 2010. But I'd agree that Ricoh seems happy to sell what it sells here, and the way that it does so. It could achieve so much more with good marketing, but maybe that's just not the plan. I'm OK with that...

It’s a question of what it would cost to build and maintain sufficient revenue to provide the services, support and visibility we think of as marketing - at what cost to increased product prices - versus what it costs to remain a small, lean player doing things as they are. At a point, marketing is, perversely, something they don’t want to do here because it increases unit sales. More unit sales requires more production capacity, which requires a capital injection Ricoh is unwilling to make at this time. They would very rapidly bump into CaNikon Prices-wise, at much lower volume.

The YouTube thing I don’t understand, but Ricoh isn’t a bunch of benighted old men. They know what they are doing. Theta is where the action is and Theta gets the money. Some day Theta might be big enough to support Pentax.

And with that (and the prior response) I’m going back to my prior premise.

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Last edited by monochrome; 02-25-2018 at 02:54 PM.

[caliscouser]

Buh Bye

Are you serious? If folks have a different view they just have to go away do they? Enjoy your bubble.

[Duvel999]

Hi,

Link to the Pentax K-1 II Brochure in English:

PENTAX K-1 II Brochure | PENTAXever.com

Cheers

[Oakland Rob]

I agree with him about the marketing. Getting info from Pentax/Ricoh is a chore. I've had several Pentax and Ricoh products, but I'm no fanboy. And I'm interested in the K-1ii. But have they got many sample images? demos from reviewers who've had a chance to use it? Anything but a bare press release? nah. And the website is full of stuff like the "2017" image ambassadors...two full months into 2018 with a 2018 product just announced. The photo gallery doesn't even list the K-1. I'm not saying they need a whole bunch of BS ad copy, but how 'bout more samples, and some videos of their ambassadors using it?

Maybe all that's coming. Meanwhile, it just leaves fanboy comments and conjecture, as well as from guys like Mr Northrup, and hard info is difficult to find. Maybe it's all coming soon, as they say. But it seems odd to be taking pre-orders before any of that info is out there.

[clackers]

I agree with him about the marketing. Getting info from Pentax/Ricoh is a chore. I've had several Pentax and Ricoh products, but I'm no fanboy. And I'm interested in the K-1ii. But have they got many sample images? demos from reviewers who've had a chance to use it? Anything but a bare press release? nah. And the website is full of stuff like the "2017" image ambassadors...two full months into 2018 with a 2018 product just announced. The photo gallery doesn't even list the K-1. I'm not saying they need a whole bunch of BS ad copy, but how 'bout more samples, and some videos of their ambassadors using it?

Maybe all that's coming. Meanwhile, it just leaves fanboy comments and conjecture, as well as from guys like Mr Northrup, and hard info is difficult to find. Maybe it's all coming soon, as they say. But it seems odd to be taking pre-orders before any of that info is out there.

Japan doesn't need that stuff, Rob. It's mainly a Japanese brand, it's rare in the States and here in Australia.

The photographer who took those sample images is a respected 645Z tog over there.

[pakinjapan]

I guess I would just say that they are more focused on Asia and Japan, in particular, and probably do a lot more marketing there than elsewhere. If I were Japanese, I would probably have a bit different view on Pentax's presence in the marketplace.

As a foreigner in Japan, and looking at the pricing viewpoint alone, It is a kind of Yes and No.
4-5 years ago, definitely Yes. I used to get new lenses only because the price is low enough. I mean it is lower than the overseas market.

Now I feel like it is more expensive than the US. for example the K-1, it was about +700 USD more here than in the US and it remains like that until recently. New lense price also moves in the same direction. That pisses me off a bit. I don't get how could they make K1 more expensive at home. ( Since I saw K-1 price remained higher here, I convince myself to just be happy with my K3 and buying only used lenses.) They might try to expand more into the US market, that why things get cheaper over there.

As for availability of gears both used and new, yeah it is a lot of gears here, and we can pretty much go to any large electronic store if we ever have a problem or questions. That includes camera and lenses testing. Almost every lens in production today can be found and test in there. However, I can hardly credit Pentax. Those electronic stores are the one deserved the credit. I can see from playing with gears in Pentax counter (which is very small) in either Biccamer or Yodobashi, Lately, No one care if I have a question or want to buy anything. If I stop at SONY, Fuji, Olympus, Nikon, Canon… yeah someone will always come in and try to talk with me about the products. Not sure if that’s good or bad

The second issue is marketing. It is nothing new to say that Pentax doesn't market very well. I understand not buying billboards or TV ads, but I'm still not sure why they can't use social media better, have a you tube channel. Even stuff like the Pentax Photo Gallery has been sort of half heartedly paid attention to -- either ditch it or make it something worthwhile.

I couldn't agree more with this. Social media are a kind of free, why not take more advance of it... it hard to understand. As for paid advertising, they have a very big billboard in one of the most expensive area in Tokyo. but I had never see them turn on the billboard light. My timing might be bad going there many weekend but never see the light on.

[Greenneck]

I would say a two stop improvement in noise performance is more important than pixel shift improvements to those of us who shoot landscapes/ night sky. If all of your Pentax gear suddenly refuses to do the job for you, sell it and move, stop whining.

Isnt that something we can do ourselves free in post? I dont think the camera does anything that we cant do ourselves but I may be wrong.

Sony , for example, already has "influencers" out in the world with their very own a7iii and had a major press field test session in the short time span after the Pentax announcement and before today. How can so many people here hate on reviewers for being critical of the specs or say "oh they don't even have the camera so they cant know anything." I live near Seattle and am pretty active in the community here, when I shop up to meets or people see me shooting with my k3ii a tiny portion of them even know Pentax is still around. Their marketing is trash.

I want the k1ii to rock, I actually want something that I could buy and feel justified to stay with the brand and the cost of upgrading from my k3ii. I've had it for over 2 years and I have been putting off any large glass investments waiting...

[Rondec]

Isnt that something we can do ourselves free in post? I dont think the camera does anything that we cant do ourselves but I may be wrong.

Sony , for example, already has "influencers" out in the world with their very own a7iii and had a major press field test session in the short time span after the Pentax announcement and before today. How can so many people here hate on reviewers for being critical of the specs or say "oh they don't even have the camera so they cant know anything." I live near Seattle and am pretty active in the community here, when I shop up to meets or people see me shooting with my k3ii a tiny portion of them even know Pentax is still around. Their marketing is trash.

I want the k1ii to rock, I actually want something that I could buy and feel justified to stay with the brand and the cost of upgrading from my k3ii. I've had it for over 2 years and I have been putting off any large glass investments waiting...

I'm not totally clear on what the accelerator chip does. It isn't a simple noise reduction algorithm, but we will have to see some real world comparison shots. I have seen the KP's performance over other APS-C cameras and I don't have the ability to reproduce that sort of high iso performance from my K3 without completely frying any detail in the image.

I also don't understand from your remarks if the issue is that you are not sure about Pentax's stability as a brand or if you are wanting some gear they don't currently produce like full frame mirrorless. Because it seems as certain as any of the other brands out there to continue to produce new cameras and gear -- just not at Sony's pace. The K-1 is an excellent deal right now as well, 1700 dollars with a free grip and would be a hard one for me to pass up if I didn't already own one.

[photoptimist]

Isnt that something we can do ourselves free in post? I dont think the camera does anything that we cant do ourselves but I may be wrong.

Sony , for example, already has "influencers" out in the world with their very own a7iii and had a major press field test session in the short time span after the Pentax announcement and before today. How can so many people here hate on reviewers for being critical of the specs or say "oh they don't even have the camera so they cant know anything." I live near Seattle and am pretty active in the community here, when I shop up to meets or people see me shooting with my k3ii a tiny portion of them even know Pentax is still around. Their marketing is trash.

I want the k1ii to rock, I actually want something that I could buy and feel justified to stay with the brand and the cost of upgrading from my k3ii. I've had it for over 2 years and I have been putting off any large glass investments waiting...

Here's the dirty little secret about marketing: it increases the cost of the camera while doing absolutely nothing to improve the performance of the camera.

Second, the opinions of the people I meet have absolutely no effect on the performance of my camera, either. They may think their Canikony camera is the best camera ever (mostly because they indirectly paid for the Canikony marketing department to tell them so) but that has no effect on what the K-1 or K-1ii can do.


As for the accelerator chip versus post processing, it's highly likely that the accelerator chip uses internal camera sensor calibration data that post processing software does not have access to. A dedicated post processor might be able to reconstruct that internal calibration data through very carefully controlled laboratory image collection and statistical analysis, but it's not something any of the off-the-shelf post processing apps can do.

[Erictator]

Tony tries to be neutral and act like an enthusiastic observer, but he gets a little off the rails at times and too cute for his own good.

That said, I think he tries to do right and is a decent enough reviewer, keeping in mind that he also has to try to get hits on his reviews to be "successful". So, he walks the line between doing a good job, making his main user base audience happy, while trying to get the least amount of hate mail.

As to Ricoh/Pentax marketing...We all have said it or thought it. We just don't like it when someone else calls our baby ugly. That's the unfiltered truth. Now, Tony could be a bit more constructive in his criticism and offer suggestions and solutions... oh wait, he does. Never mind. LOL. Yeah, hard to fault someone for stating the obvious.

You can tell, Tony, not unlike us on this forum, gets frustrated with Pentax because HE WANTS to like the product and see it do better because he does like a lot of the other things that we also like and makes Pentax so cool...Tony would probably be a big supporter with some signs of rapid progress from Ricoh/Pentax, instead of this long slog to get where we want to be. If Ricoh was moving as fast as Fuji or Sony with releasing lenses, improving AF, etc. no one would probably be a bigger supported than Tony. At least that is the impression I get of the man.

It is a catch 22 situation. For Ricoh to get the fan base and new users enthused, they need to make great products, and get them out there in front of people in a timely manner, but they can't afford to without sales. This is called INVESTING... and investing is always a gamble. If they were coming off of a high profit period, this would just be simple re-investing, which is a no brainer. Coming off of a low, you are asking stock holders to accept flat line returns, and have to find the money somewhere else (new investors, or liquidate failing assets, etc).

When Ricoh first bought Pentax, I was chuffed because I thought (assumed, and was wrong) that finally someone with deep enough pockets and a good marketing arm had bought Pentax and was going to make them competitive in the top 3 arena. Considering the reality of Ricoh's current financial situation, I'd say they are doing marvelously well by us, the existing users, and even though we are on the slow road, at least we are still on the road!!!! I'd say this is one of those count your blessings scenarios.

Eric

[mohb]

At a point, marketing is, perversely, something they don’t want to do here because it increases unit sales

Is it only monochrome and I who understand the logic in this?

[monochrome]

Is it only monochrome and I who understand the logic in this?

The concept is contrary to everything we think we know about commerce.

[beholder3]

Isnt that something we can do ourselves free in post?

Check your assumptions.

In our recent user survey a full 50% of > 1600 respondents said that the either shoot only JPG or raw+JPG.
So pretty much half of Pentax customers want nice results ooC and do not want postprocessing.
So in camera processing does appeal to a whopping 50% of all their customers.

Compare that to the binary option to never again publish a K-3 successor. Definitely less than 50% care.
Compare that to the binary option to publish or not any sort of lens. Definitely less than 50% care.
Neither any single new lens nor a major camera release touches as many users.

[texandrews]

Here's the dirty little secret about marketing: it increases the cost of the camera while doing absolutely nothing to improve the performance of the camera.

That's a true statement. But it is not why marketing exists. Marketing exists to increase sales. That's it. And if Pentax has better sales, they'll ultimately have better stability, and more resources for more R&D and/or creation of new products.

Second, the opinions of the people I meet have absolutely no effect on the performance of my camera, either. They may think their Canikony camera is the best camera ever (mostly because they indirectly paid for the Canikony marketing department to tell them so) but that has no effect on what the K-1 or K-1ii can do.

I'm with you there.

As for the accelerator chip versus post processing, it's highly likely that the accelerator chip uses internal camera sensor calibration data that post processing software does not have access to. A dedicated post processor might be able to reconstruct that internal calibration data through very carefully controlled laboratory image collection and statistical analysis, but it's not something any of the off-the-shelf post processing apps can do.

That's fascinating.

[photoptimist]

That's a true statement. But it is not why marketing exists. Marketing exists to increase sales. That's it. And if Pentax has better sales, they'll ultimately have better stability, and more resources for more R&D and/or creation of new products.

That's a very good point and maybe I'm a bit too harsh on marketing. And yet.....

The first open question is: can marketing increase sales sufficiently to offset the cost of marketing? If Ricoh added $1 million to the Pentax marketing budget, what would they get, and would it boost sales? Ricoh's per unit gross on Pentax equipment probably is not high once you take out retail mark-ups, shipping costs, warrantee costs, and costs of goods sold -- maybe a $100-$300 dollars per camera? That $1 million would need to boost sales by say 3,000 to 10,000 units just to break even. And for marketing to actually create say another $1 million in resources for R&D, that campaign would need to boost sales by say 6,000 to 20,000 cameras. Can the campaign do that? I feel like marketing is no longer seen by many (how many people use ad blockers or simply avert their eyes to advertising). A social media campaign may be inexpensive, but that only reaches people who already know about Pentax. It's not effective at reaching those who don't know Pentax exists. And the marketing that is noticed is not trusted and is likely to foster insults and derision. Does marketing still really work to convince non-beleivers?

The second open question remains whether marketing can increase sales more that can some other uses of those funds. That same $1 millio might make much of a difference if used to crete better AF, a new lens, or an update to the K-3. If Ricoh is thinking about adding $1 million to Pentax corporate budget, is it better to put that into marketing or engineering?


We can only speculate on the rationale for Ricoh's strategy. Are they stupid to ignore marketing or do they have data that shows that marketing is not cost-effective relative to other uses of the money?