Ricoh Pentax Shakes Up Camera Industry Grassroots Marketing

Ricoh Pentax shakes up the camera industry with grassroots marketing, direct-to-consumer sales, crowdfunding projects, localized photography events, and most importantly of all, listening to their customers and making products they want!

What? Who would have thought such as thing?

Don't all camera manufacturers do this already?

Short answer: !! NO, NO, and NO a few more times !!

💎 I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment area below!

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[jcristina]

Ricoh Pentax shakes up the camera industry with grassroots marketing, direct-to-consumer sales, crowdfunding projects, localized photography events, and most importantly of all, listening to their customers and making products they want!

What? Who would have thought such as thing?

Don't all camera manufacturers do this already?

Short answer: !! NO, NO, and NO a few more times !!

💎 I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment area below!





[ Channel Membership ]

YouTube has recently made Memberships available to this channel. The great thing about this is that I can now provide perks for becoming a channel member as a way of giving back and saying thank you! Simply click the JOIN button under any of my hundreds of videos.

If you enjoy my content and are thinking about contributing to the channel by becoming a member, I thank you in advance for your generosity. Rest assured, I will continue to make quality unbiased content and build this amazing community of fellow creatives.


Follow me on Instagram @josephcristina for extra behind-the-scenes content and if you found value in this video, please take a moment to Thumbs-Up, Subscribe, Turn-On Notifications, and most importantly Tell A Friend about the channel.




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[paylnyles]

At 63 I remember when Pentax was top of the tree and am sad to see them slip so much in the UK that shop don't even stock them x

[stevenreed]

As a Pentax huge enthusiast, I am really excited about this strategy. I love the whole grass roots approach. The moment that a showroom opens up here in the US, I will be the first person there to check it out. Great concept!

[lawrencekeeney]

Fortunately we have a local camera store (Bedford Camera) in Tulsa. This is where I do my camera equipment shopping. This weekend they are having an all day event where they have multiple photographers doing presentations throughout the day.

[darrenramkissoon]

I 💘 what pentax is doing, it is great.

[alangauld]

Back in the 70s/80s we in the UK had a company called Jessops, based in Leicester, which had a large exhibition area and warehouse. The guys in the exhibition area weren't allowed/able to sell you anything, they just demo'd and gave advice. They also ran in-house tutorials(including a full darkroom and photo studio for lighting) If you found something you liked you walked next door to the warehouse and bought it at a very competitive price. It was fantastic! Sadly it didn't scale and they were bought over, became a regular high street store and, eventually, went bust a few years ago... Now good customer service just means they smile and say "have a nice day" after serving you!

[NorCal-yeti]

Thanks again and yesterday I actually drove 1 hour just to go to a camera store just to look around.

[colnagocowboy]

I've thought about updating my Pentax to something newer than an M42 mount for a long time. My fondest memory of a mom & pop store was Ron's Photo art shop. I went in looking for a camera case for a bike touring vacation. Ron grabbed a half dozen bags took them out onto the sidewalk and we picked the one that fit best.

[andrear]

Thanks one more time to bring up such content

[erickdanielsson]

Thanks, I have been using Pentax camera's since 1968, had a spotmatic. Now I shoot with a K70. What is sweet, I can buy a great used lens, Pentax Super-Takumar lens for few dollars on E-Bay. The K mount of old lens fits my camera. So auto focus doesn't work, But my old cameras didn't have auto anything, I like being in control. BTW Thanks for the free books!

[kjamestaylor]

Some very good management consultants but I love it it rocks

[stevemurphy]

Great to hear that Pentax (Ricoh) is reaching out and willing to listen. Hopefully they will continue to produce practical, well made, and innovated products.

[michaels]

As you know I have the Pentax K1 MK2 as my main camera, and I never regretted it. In fact, it is my way to slow down, take my time and have a camera I can use in any conditions, except for inside a volcano. The build, images, low light performance, IBIS, menu, buttons, dials, knows are rock solid. Too many times now, brands are in a race to outdo one another with mediocrity, and some people fall for the hype, claiming they need things like 8k, 40 FPS, and kangaroo AF. We have come full circle and are right back with instant cameras, film, and personal video cameras. Now we collectively do not give a hot damn about your 300 lenses, $6000 bodies, 8k, and we are NOT messing with that crap Panasonic AF, no matter what hype they try to generate. It's the same people buying the GH6 who bought the Gh4/5, and I doubt they will sell many for $2200. WE the people, gave you brands the chance to wow us and bring us what we wanted, and most of the time, you dropped the ball. One became the RECALL KING, one the CRIPPLE Master, One tried to sell us a $3000 4/3 camera, one makes 486767 different models of cameras, and one wants to be stubborn and keep on offering TRASH AF, with the excuse they shoot manual..DUH...Most of camera shoot manual..The people have spoken, and we want it simple..

[christopherward]

It’s an interesting niche to create. For Ricoh Pentax who are not heavily advertised, stocked in depth or even reviewed fairly, there is scope to build an audience and a market that is scaled to fit their philosophy. Pentax used to be one of the top three manufacturers and remains one of the most innovative. They realise that they are struggling to be heard in the media so going direct to marketing to the customer base should reap rewards. I think they’ll make it work!

[geoffreystone]

My new gear buying days are long gone. I buy and try on EBay, Gumtree and FBMP. I resell if I don’t like, although Covid slowed that down a little. I love vintage Nikon. Have a Fuji underwater compact and Panasonic video camera. Not sure any newfangled gear is going to do much for my photography. But good luck to marketing initiatives, hope it works for them.

[MrJaynice]

Last week Canon, Sony and Sigma came to Chicago to Dodd Camera on 2844 west armitage mom and pop store. I tested several lenses and cameras with lighting and models for free a two day event but not many people came out maybe 30 over the weekend

[game]

I still shop at the photography shop here in fair cleveland and we still get the reps. I got to play with the R5 and R6 the week it came out. We had the Panasonic reps with the S1 with model. Don’t get the goodie bags anymore .

[chocolatecatdad]

I much prefer to hold the camera in my hands before I buy. I want to get a feel for it. This is a smart move by Pentax as I suspect many want to hold the camera in their hands before buying if at all possible. Also, Pentax will get more direct feedback from both current and potential customers; information that is priceless. Right now, the manufacturers of my gear either hear from me directly if there is a problem (not that I have had a problem) or at best indirectly. In both situations this is likely to be done by email or posting a review. They do not have an opportunity to chat face-to-face with me. Many excellent sales pros will say they want to 'lock eyes' with the customer to 'seal the deal' whenever possible.

Crowd funding is an interesting method as manufacturers can say they need to raise X in Y months for the project to go ahead. Once they have the funding they basically have Z sales locked in and potentially many more if the product is released to regular retail channels. I would expect many manufacturers to use crowd funding to gauge real interest in a product concept.

[marksmall]

Digital Fort Knox is a great idea. It would be nice to have an impenitrable castle to protect the images and data that is precious to you.

[HomeroAGonzalez]

Human to Human personal Interaction? Brilliant!! Listening to customers?? Brilliant!! Grassroots Marketing? Brilliant!!. Lets hope they bring the idea to the USA market as well asap. All other manufacturers should follow suit...