Strategy Session: We’re No Longer Selling against Ourselves

Strategy Session: We’re No Longer Selling against Ourselves

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This is the first issue since our CES wrap-up edition, and we’ve all had some time to reflect on what’s going on in the tech world. And finally, I think we can all agree it’s time to sell what we have.

You see, for years we’ve seen technology outpace demand. Just when our customers are getting comfortable with one new bell or whistle, another one came along and made it obsolete. Remember when ISO settings tapped out at 1,600? I recently learned that the new Nikon D4S reaches its peak at 409,600! (Oh really…that might come in handy.) Smartphones are now coming in easily at 41 megapixels (sort of), and mirrorless cameras have bursts up to 11 frames per second. All good news for the bells-and-whistles fanatics.

But can we rocket back to Earth, please. The majority of customers buying cameras today are just looking for a lightweight, compact camera that can do more than their smartphones. And I think we can finally get back to the notion that we’ve all been waiting for: a camera that takes a damn good picture.

We may have hit a technology wall for a while. Not just in cameras either. Smartphones seem to have settled in on their form factor, their use of apps and (believe it or not) their ability to be a great phone. Samsung’s new Galaxy S5 doesn’t seem to offer any real breakthroughs because they might be running out of them. Beautiful screens, great video, apps galore. I think I just heard a few ho-hums out there.

The bottom line is that we’re spoiled. We’ve continued to see the next big thing beaten out by the next big thing. “New” products make “not quite as new” products obsolete in a matter of months. Premium-priced products dissolve into sale-priced products, and our margins go right along with them. Product life cycles have become so short that our babies are thrown to the curb before they can even walk.

This is not to say that technology is dead, or that we’ve hit the end of the road. There are too many engineers way smarter than me who are calculating algorithms as we speak. But since we have a break in the action, let’s look at what we’re facing now as an industry.

We’re no longer selling against ourselves. It’s no longer just about who has more ISO range or how deep you can throw your camera into the water. We’re selling against a generational shift that has pushed photo quality to the backseat. Our competitors don’t only have names like Canon and Nikon and Sony, they have brands like Apple and Samsung and Nokia. And their marketing dollars seem to be bigger than ours. So what’s a camera industry to do?

Play to our strengths. We know photography. We know what cameras can do that smartphones can’t. We know you can’t make a phone call on a Panasonic Lumix GH4. But we also know that if your kid is playing the outfield, a Nokia Lumia will never be able to nail the shot, no matter how many megapixels it’s boasting.

We need to raise the level of conversation about what photography really means. People need to be reminded that their smartphones are great for some pictures but are way below average for many—and absolutely worthless for the images that matter most. And while we may be fighting an uphill battle with the 18–25 year olds, that’s okay. When the time is right, they’ll come around.

So let’s use this break in the technology action to talk less about features and more about photography. We should be dictating the conversation.

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