Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/12/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I think there is a such a thing as a premium product and that is not that obscure of a concept and its pretty obvious.. A product which takes pains to be the best and treads to increase its functionality with a higher degree of R&D and product control. Perhaps they have a different concept in how it the product is designed such as Leica using a rangefinder instead of a pentaprism and a groundless.. A luxury product is not that. A luxury products concern its that its expensive and appeal to the people of high that top percentage of money to be able to afford it. Performance and functionality is much less the issue. Ostentatiousness and "comfort" are some of the issues for what Luxury products all all about. One thinks of cars. Chairs. Not tools like cameras. A tool as a thing you work with. Not self indulge in. Leica has until it first tried to go digital in 14 September 2006 with the m8 appealed to a solid but small select group of top pros in the photographic field and some discerning very serious amateurs.. They were not trying to keep up with the Jones and wear camera jewelry they were trying to get the shot and their names were on the line. Calling the Leica camera a luxury product is certainly an insult to the company and the people who use the cameras and gear. One could call it insensitivity. I'd just call it a crass insult. What you'd expect to hear on a dumb DSLR list. One of a slew of insults to come out on this list in the past weeks. And this is the Leica Users Group. A Leica M6 cost what a Nikon f4 cost. It did a whole lot less it was "low tech" with a cloth shutter making it less great for flash. So with no micromoters and CPU's it "felt" unaffordable. "I cant afford to spend a grand on a camera which does not give me auto focus and auto exposure" You could not put huge fancy long glass on it the glass was compact so as to not get in the way of the viewfinder. A Leica camera was not without "Bling" but if you wanted to make a big impression a big SLR with motor drive and white 400mm lens was the way to go. A Leica is rather famous for blending in. being low key. This would and should be a list with people on it who respect and admire what Leica is all about. Not putting it in an annoying pigeonhole. Leicas are sold in camera stores with other cameras. In the past were there "Leica stores" in which a butler handed you a find brandy as you walked in the door? I think not. I'm sure not all camera stores had a lot of Leicas in them and some of the ones which did were a bit better appointed. But now there are Nike stores and Apple stores and now there will be Leica stores. From what I've seen they're not going to be looking like jewelry stores. More like Apple stores. Mark William Rabiner Photography http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/lugalrabs/ > From: Greg Rubenstein <gcr910 at gmail.com> > Reply-To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> > Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2012 17:06:27 +0800 > To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> > Subject: Re: [Leica] What Leica can learn from Polaroid > > Geoff is spot on with his Polaroid analogy; even if that and Kodak are > mass-market sagas. Business rules, as such, cross industries, products and > audiences. > > Leica has a target audience, niche and cachet, which makes it something of > an > outlier in the pretty much fungible world of photography these days. Leicas > are objects of desire, not need, for most. Even us. > > Maybe the company should be compared to the makers and purveyors of luxury > products, be they fine watches, exotic cars or other items of high cost and > limited availability. > > The whole equation, wherever a company is on whatever band of the spectrum > or > whatever it produces, is delivering value for its target audience. Please > your > audience with your products, create more desire for your products and make > sure your operating costs are under control relative to income/sales. > > Will rely on Geoff or Jayanand to correct me if I got it wrong. > > Greg Rubenstein > > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information