Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/12/11

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Subject: Re: [Leica] How could the R8 be bettered?
From: Donal Philby <donalphilby@earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 11:41:10 -0800

David W. Almy wrote:
> 
> Fix Leica's marketing strategy. The full page R8 ad says, "...You're a
> serious amateur photographer...." I've been doing this for 25 years,
> have a B.S. degree in photography, have $30k worth of Leica stuff in my
> car right now, and have an exhibit up at the Smithsonian (BFD to all,
> eh?). Probably am a tad past "amateur" here. Why not just say "serious
> photographer", which covers the waterfront? This is a minor point but
> symptomatic of amateur advertising work. Who's writing this stuff,
> anyway? Photographers should at the very least highly contribute to the
> ad and marketing copy! That's not happening now. How about a testimonial
> series of "Great photographers & the Leica R8"? 

David, 
I've already pitched this exact idea to people at Leica USA, even
offered to write/create them for a trade out (I spent 15 years writing
copy and owned an ad agency, so this isn't just a lark!) and was
basically told to go away, that the market IS amateurs, especially
collectors.  There have been a few ads in Leica Photographie (such as
one I can remember by Sieff) that explored this ground, albeit
gingerly.  I think of what Nikon does with their multipage ads are
tremendous communication.  And Canon's latest series of brochures on the
EOS-3 and new strobes demonstrate what I have always believed about
advertising:  if people are interested, they will read enormous amounts
of information.  I helped a friend of mine write an ad for a hard drive
company once.  The two page ad used 1500 words with virtually no hype. 
It was a tremendous fight to get the execs to agree to run it.  But the
first time it appeared, the company had to hire 20 people just to keep
up with the telephone calls.  After that they were believers.

donal
- -- 
Donal Philby
San Diego
http://www.donalphilby.com