Re: [Leica] M Campaign

[Brian Reid <reid@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>]

I spent 15 years working for a technology company that made a device
that was technically superior, high priced, and had low market share. I
have spent literally thousands of hours studying the problem of
marketing such a beast. While the Leica is somewhat different (its
value does not plummet with age), the challenges involved in high-end
niche marketing are extreme.

Based on this experience, I would not criticize somebody else's
high-end nich marketing campaign until I had seen their demographic
data. If Leica Camera is going to stay in business so that you and I
can enjoy our Leicas, then they have to sell cameras to more people
than they do now. It is just as beneficial to us, to the community of
serious photographers, if the "keep the company alive" sales go to
queens, or skateboard champions, Anglican bishops, or narwhals. The
trick is to feed a slowly-growing market of people who want them and
who have enough money to buy them. It could well be that having HM the
Queen seen using an M6 would sell more of them than having Ted Grant
seen using one. Certainly more people with enough money to buy a Leica
have heard of Her Majesty than have heard of Ted, even though he is a
better photographer. Every M6 bought by a rap star or a career criminal
is one more M6 sold.

Basically you need to sell enough cameras to be able to pay your
engineering staff and to keep your manufacturing capability moving.
Exactly how many cameras that might be is going to be a closely-guarded
secret, and some items will have a much higher profit margin than
others. One out of a thousand cameras may go to somebody with the
talent to use it well enough to enhance its reputation; the others will
go to meet the salary needs of the people who designed it.

Brian Reid