[Leica] Leica donation to students

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

B. D.,
I think Kit's concept of a camera donated for nothing more than a tax
receipt is wonderful.

I mean Leica get "free cameras" to refurbish and in most cases it wouldn't
be more than a quick check over, wiped down and ready to hand out to some on
the way kid showing potential talent.

The student is hooked and becomes a new life long Leica customer and all for
next to nothing than giving them a free camera or for a few dollars. Now the
IRS may have other ideas about the tax credit, but surely it's an idea worth
trying if it means they're building a market future, than the damn silliness
of the hand pictures by so called "great photographers!" And worse, the bull
shit espoused by some the owners of the hands.

But when you go back over the past twenty years or so of promotion, a small
company or not, they've had some of the most dumb assed advertising in the
world. And I don't have any doubt it's part of the Germanic mind set of
still living in the '20's and '30's and not moving with the times.

As I said in a previous post one merely needs to do a presentation to a
photographic school and there are no Leica's! OK maybe some kind of pre-M
body that only fuels the idea a Leica is an ancient camera for old people!

Worse? They don't have any idea about how valuable a tool the camera can be
in their photography. Canon and Nikon have sucked there brains out with
promotion and press button gizmos that do everything. But the one thing no
camera can do, put the most important element to the operation
...............the ability to"SEE!"

But this topic and concept wont go anywhere but our screens, because in
Solms the top people wont listen seriously as they "KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS!"

By the same token maybe there are rules and tax regulations blocking this
kind of idea. But surely it's so imaginative and simple without costing a
great deal of money to make it work, one would think Leica would jump on the
idea immediately and get the ball rolling.

Oh well we're mere mortals so what do we know about marketing. :-(
ted