Now that I'm back home and can tell you what day and time it is, I've been catching up on some of the smaller bits and pieces I track, such as Nikon's marketing messages. I have to say, I'm a bit confused. Or perhaps it's Nikon that's confused.
The latest marketing messages are mostly centered around Nikon 1. As usual, here in the states we've got Ashton Kutcher hawking the thing, now both in TV ads and in print. Let me throw a few of the tag lines that Nikon seems to randomly throw out:
- A Nikon the world has never seen...
- Great pictures made easy
- Revolutionary in size, design, and capabilities
- A breakthrough in technology and design
- Nikon revolutionizes imaging with Nikon 1
- Focus that's as fast as you
- Get the best of what's seen
- Nikon 1 breaks visual barriers
- Share a richer experience
- Moments that deserve more
- Huge is explosively fast
- Huge is a still photo that's set in motion
- Huge is shooting full HD video and stills simultaneously
- Huge is a Nikon the world has never seen and it happens to be very very small
- Small is now huge
That's a lot of tag lines, and I've barely scratched the surface. Moreover, there are some glaring issues with how these statements are used. For example, in the brochure that's nearly ubiquitous, the words "...and it happens to be very, very small" are followed by "10.1 megapixels" and "3-inch LCD monitor." Yeah, that sounds small.
Personally, I fail to see the focus (pardon the pun). There's an implied "get Nikon DSLR quality and performance in a friendly, small package," but no explicit statement of that. Moreover, even that implication is highly indirect. If the target is compact camera users moving up, the message should be "we've made small cameras way better. The Nikon 1 is as small as some compact cameras, but it takes better pictures (bigger sensor), focuses faster, creates better video, has lens flexibility, and does things no other camera does (Motion Snapshot and Smart Photo Selector). You might not need a DSLR (but if you do, we make the best of those, too)."
What I see in the Nikon 1 campaign is an attempt to not mention DSLRs. Nikon seems afraid of the "we took the performance of our DSLRs and put it into a small package" message, perhaps because they're afraid they'll stop selling DSLRs. I'm not sure why they'd be afraid of that. The gross profit margin on a V1 has to be higher than that of the D3100 and D5100. Moreover, if you're going to sell Coolpix, Nikon 1, Nikon DX DSLRs, and Nikon FX DSLRs, then at some point you have to tell customers why you have four lines of cameras and which one they should pick for what reasons.
Unfortunately, Nikon doesn't yet have that message figured out themselves. The product line has some very disjointed bits to it: the Coolpix P300 and P7100 have a higher level of user interface and a lower level of performance than the Nikon 1. The D3100 has weaker autofocus and video capabilities than the Nikon 1. In short, not only are the marketing messages all over the place, so is the current product line.
One wonders just what kind of powerhouse Nikon would be if they could just put all these pieces together into a coherent, complete, and compelling product and message set.