Mike Johnston pointed out:
> Not to ignore the content of Shaun's message, however--I agree with you
> Shaun. The fact is, when you have only one product, you need to make sure it
> is mainstream. If you try to make it too "different," it will probably
> appeal to too few people. The *ist D looks to be very well-judged in this
> regard--different enough, but also mainstream enough.
Hmph.
This ties into a rant I've been composing in my head (that'll
eventually escape through my fingers and wind up on my web site
or in my LiveJournal) about blandness. It seems that in _many_
products, "failing to offend" has become more important than
"managing to thrill". I complained in my LiveJournal about
"classic rock" radio stations that have three *decades* of music
to choose from and still wind up playing so few songs that they
have to repeat the same ones several times a day, and someone
more familiar with the radio industry explained that tests had
shown that the thing that made people change stations was
"hearing a song they don't like", so the radio stations had to
limit themselves to the relatively few songs that "everybody"
(in their demographic) likes. (I'm the odd one out ... the way
to get me to change the station is to bore me. Playing one song
I don't like isn't enough, though ten in a row would do it.)
Twenty years ago (before the micro-brewery thing caught on), my
father explained something similar about beer: that there had
once been lots of regional brews which all tasted different, but
when (American) brands got big enough to go national, they had
to moderate the flavour so as to not make someone from halfway
across the country go "yuck", so all the big brands wound up
being bland and tasting similar. (Micro-brews reverse this by
being (and often, I think, deliberately staying) small enough to
not have to worry about attracting more than just the folks who
like their particular flavour. Are there other examples of a
counter-trend in my culture (US)? And is the "beige-ing" effect
universal, or particularly American?)
Somehow I can accept this more easily with a big-ticket item
such as a camera, especially when there's major R&D and
_tooling_ costs for setting up a line, so that Large Sales
Volume becomes crucial to profitability/survival (as opposed to
merely being the difference between small profits and large
profits). A custom-designed camera that's Exactly Right For
Glenn would be nifty, but there'd be no "economy of scale"; it's
like how I can buy a mass-produced guitar off the rack for a
couple hundred dollars, or pay ten bleeping times as much (or
more) for a hand-built-just-for-me instrument with whatever
tweaks to the design I desire. I don't know of anybody
hand-building custom SLR bodies yet. Or a good way to make
affordable "small batches" (like a microbrew). As Mike pointed
out, it takes a funny balance: similar enough to not put off
potential customers, but distinct enough to make them choose it
over a competitor. I'm sure there's more than one balance, but
I'm guessing there are "nodes" in the graph: certain designs
are going to cost a certain amount to produce; of the designs at
a particular price point, only the ones that'll appeal to (or at
least fail to put off) enough customers to make back the cost of
tooling and design can be mass-produced.
(I may hate the effect, but I think I understand it.)
If you're making a product that doesn't have enough of a market
to warrant mass-production in the first place, or where folks
are willing to pay high enough prices to warrant small
production runs, it's easier to provide more options. Or
customization. How large is the large-format camera market?
Some of those are hand-built, aren't they? I imagine (and hope
that someone will confirm or rebut) that if you're willing to
spend enough, you can get a large-format camera customized
pretty much any way you want, right?
I'm sure most of us would like to see Pentax a) be _bold_ and
make a camera we can point to as Different and Better and a
Trend Setter instead of looking at all commodity-ish, and b)
make something *I* think is cool ... which will be a little
different for each speaker. But we also need Pentax to get away
with being however bold they are, which means: 1) a little bit
of unfortunate conservatism to avoid "bizarring" itself into
being a niche player, and 2) enough _advertising_ to convince
anyone sitting on the fence that the things that are different
about Pentax' offerings are Very Desirable Traits That Every
Consumer Desperately Wants. (And I really hope Pentax doesn't
forget (2).)
Oh, but I'm just a grumpy culture-critic, not a businessman, so
apply salt as needed. Anyhow, assuming I've actually got a
clue, how does this affect how you percieve the design
considerations of the *ist?
-- Glenn
