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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
01-28-2009, 08:44 PM
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Well nobody's holding the title of President of Pentax USA except him. Like it or not people will judge him to a higher standard.
He can play with whatever gear he wants on his own time but he gets paid to market and promote Pentax... not Panasonic/Leica...
Poor judgment on his part.
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
01-28-2009, 08:40 PM
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Well a better analogy would be Nissan/Renault boss Carlos Ghosn and the awesome Nissan GT-R. He's got supercars of his own alright but he commissioned Nissan to build from the ground up a Porsche killer. Which Nissan did and he takes pride taking delivery of car No.1 when it first rolled off the assembly line. That's corporate loyalty for you...
The photo business like any business is a cut-throat one and for the Pentax USA President did to do what he did is certainly a big disservice to Pentax. What a joke...
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Forum: Pentax News and Rumors
01-27-2009, 05:57 PM
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First off I don't agree nor believe it was a good idea for the President of Pentax USA to use much less "endorse" a Leica (Panasonic) on a open blog nor publicly at various forums.
The notion that Pentax currently doesn't have a camera in the "advanced compact" segment, nor the idea put forward that he is a photographer first and Pentax USA head second, or that he is a Leica collector just doesn't wash with me.
Where is the brand loyalty?
Whether directly or indirectly, there is no getting around that many would relate to him as a Pentax USA head first and photographer second. He may wear two hats but it is obvious which one has more prominence. In Japan, Toyota and Nissan would urge their staff to use their vehicles and I cannot imagine a Canon, Nikon or Sony senior executive to be using, much less stating publicly the use of a rival product. What a horrible faux pas and poor judgment.
To justify using a rival brand simply because Pentax PnS aren't in the same market segment unfortunately sends a clear signal that Pentax isn't the brand to consider for advanced PnS cameras, which reaffirms my opinion and I'm sure many others that Pentax PnS cameras aren't particularly remarkable. It is easy to come up with a marketing chart to explain the market segmentation but for the masses, it isn't easy to distinguish from one PnS compact from another whether brand wise or feature wise. Bottomline this doesn't add to Pentax brand building at all.
Whether the photographer in him knows that Pentax PnS cameras just cannot make it so he has to use something better, or maybe he isn't that great a photographer that he can't make the most of a Pentax compact who knows.
But if he has pointed out a gap in the market, as President of Pentax US he has the best opportunity to influence Pentax Japan on the need to produce a rival D-Lux/G10 killer advanced compact. If the intent was to communicate that by using a Leica, it unfortunately sent the wrong message altogether, from "Be Interesting" to "Nothing Interesting" :o
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