Leica's marketing strategy

[pop]

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Bing a Grman company, thy lctd to us Grmn nams for thir products.

 

Hade ite beene inventede - saye ine Canadae - ite woulde havee beene callede the Monochrome.

[Jeff S]

Rumor has it that the brand name will be changed to Lica, which will save millions in advertising ink, signage size and internal communications.

 

The M-E, however, is doomed.

 

Jeff

[250swb]

If they had marketed it as a budget Leica 'Me', something 'I' can afford (supposing I want one) then they are onto a strategy, it connects with a buyer, 'me', a stripped down camera without fripperies. All of a sudden they have my camera to sell to me, not selling a number, 'I am not a number' (to quote a character on olden days TV who is famous for a rebellious attitude).

 

Steve

[pop]

If they had marketed it as a budget Leica 'Me', something 'I' can afford (supposing I want one) then they are onto a strategy, it connects with a buyer, 'me', a stripped down camera without fripperies. All of a sudden they have my camera to sell to me, not selling a number, 'I'm not a number' (to quote a character on TV famous for a rebellious attitude).

 

Steve

 

Wouldn't that make it a ME-2?

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello Everybody,

 

Didn't he actually say "I am not a number"?

 

In proper British English, including relevant e's.

 

Best Regards

 

Michael

[Guest]

Yeah. Absolutely. I bet no other company would do something like that. It's the kiss of death. I mean, what if Apple did that with the iPod, iPad or Mac.....

 

oh, wait........

 

 

Gordon

 

The big differance is that a very high % of the population from about age 10 upwards wants an apple product.Apple is a houshold name. Leica is totally unknown outside a very small % of the population.

BrianP

[pico]

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The big differance is that a very high % of the population from about age 10 upwards wants an apple product. Apple is a houshold name. Leica is totally unknown outside a very small % of the population.

BrianP

 

In even modestly affluent areas of the USA, children experience Apple computers in grade school, and their parents did, too. Get 'em young and they are likely to look for more. Leica does not have that niche, and it never will.

.

[Peter H]

Bling is still very popular.

 

M60 is good old bling with the added benefit of an ostensible "traditional" or even "purist" tang that keeps it within smelling distance of the Leica-family flavour.

 

It costs sufficiently more than any other reasonable small format camera to keep Leica in the bling stratosphere, where the thing that I believe marketing people sometimes call the halo effect is still sought after. And they barely have to trouble themselves making them.

 

The only thing that matters is whether it works, and none of us know because we haven't seen next year's sales figures for the entire Leica range yet. It probably will.

[bocaburger]

Leica found out in the seventies with the M5 that their customer base would rather pay the same or more to revert to older technology (M4-2) than accept a radically-changed form-factor. Catering to that brought Leica back from the brink, and has propelled them forward to this day.

[pico]

Leica found out in the seventies with the M5 that their customer base would rather pay the same or more to revert to older technology (M4-2)

 

 

That was then; this is now and with an enlightened sideways glance you might be right, but in a different light,

 

When we consider the demographics of camera consumers today, the M5 was a very long time ago and the current base of camera consumers do not know or care. Leica's direction to promote the simplicity and tactile beauty of the latest hand finished entry begins the reinvention of Leica's reputation to make elegance for another class of consumers which I believe will bridge two generations.