----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Stenquist"
Subject: Re: Bloomburg on Pentax financial woes
It's not a shell game, it's just smart marketing. Getting the most return
on your development money is a good thing.
There was a fellow in Detroit who was an expert at that kind of marketing.
His name was lee Iacocca. He worked for Ford in the days when they were
really number two. He had this car called Falcon that had been only mildly
successful and whose development costs had never been recovered. He
decided to give it some different sheetmetal and reintroduce it with
another name. I believe it was called "Mustang." It generated enough
profit that the company was able to develop some rather nice follow-ups to
that original. Later he played the same game for even bigger stakes for
Chrysler with a car called the "K." The same basic 1980 platform was used
to build at least twenty cars, all the way up to the 2003 Chrysler Town
and Country and Dodge Caravan minivans. It saved the company from almost
certain bankruptcy and set the stage for what is now the only profitable
US car company. Rebadging a product to stimulate sales is almost always a
good idea. Frankly, I'm surprised that Pentax plays it as smart as they
obviously do.
Not a bad analogy, but there are some holes in it that I could drive my
Titan through.
The Falcon didn't have much styling appeal, the Mustang did much better in
this regard.
I recall the Mustang was given a really hard sell in the media as well.
Who remembers the "Must get a Mustang" ads?
The K car and Caravan appealed to different market segments, or at one least
market segment that had outgrown the other.
The istDs, Dl, DL2 and whatever else they have called the thing appeals to
the same demographic, and has more or less the same style appeal.
Pentax needs to appeal to something other than the lowest market segment.
This means making their better lenses available as something other than
ephemera on their websites, and making cameras that at least compete with
their competitors lowest end cameras.
William Robb
