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PRESS RELEASE
A Q & A with Chad Munce, Group Executive, Digital Imaging Markets about the success at this year's Photo Marketing Association (PMA) 2007 Show!
27 March, 2007 -
As EKN’s name represents, we value the strength that Networking provides. We also value the many professional relationships that we have developed around the World. Over the last two years we have partnered with the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) and the Digital Imaging Marketing Association (DIMA).
The PMA 2007 Event was excellent!
This Global Competition was highly visible at the Convention and represented thirty three entries from around the Globe. Rather than providing you with our limited observations, we asked Chad Munce, Group Executive, Digital Imaging Markets, to provide you with an overview from the top.
EKN: "Chad, thank you for taking time to provide your thoughts and insights on this year’s Photo Marketing Association (PMA) 2007 Event." Chad: "Thank you, Robert. It was a real pleasure working with EKN this year, and we’re very pleased about the overwhelming response to the PMA 07 show and the DIMA Photo Kiosk Shoot-Out."
EKN: "Why did you develop the Kiosk Shootout?" Chad: "The idea was born at a DIMA Board meeting when discussing ways in which DIMA could serve the imaging industry. We had been doing “shoot-out” events for digital printers and digital cameras for years, and one of our board members said, “Why don’t we do this for kiosks?” So the following year we launched the first photo kiosk shoot-out."
"Right from the start, we received a great amount of interest from photo kiosk manufacturers, and that interest has only increased over the past four years. In year one, we had an impressive 22 photo kiosks from 13 kiosk manufactures participate. The event has grown every year, and in 2007 we had 33 kiosks participate from 16 different manufacturers."
"PMA excels at creating a level playing field where the industry can feel safe that an event like this kiosk shoot-out will be handled fairly and objectively. So when an award is won, there is a certain level of prestige associated with it. The industry recognizes that DIMA Shoot-Outs are the real deal and not some marketing ploy."
EKN: "We know that is true and that Winners of the DIMA Awards place high value not only on winning but also on leveraging off of the visibility, recognition, and satisfaction that comes from being recognized as the Best of the Best!
We had an opportunity to speak with several of the DIMA Photo Kiosk Shoot-Out Award Winners and asked them for their perspective. All of the DIMA Winners can be found at the Photo Marketing Association’s website, found at www.pmai.org/."
Murray Macdonald - President / CTO - Storefront.com, Vancouver, BC, Canada, provided these insights into winning the Award:
EKN: "What is the importance of being recognized by the Photo Industry to your Team?" Murray: "PMA2007 was huge for Storefront. Our team has been working hard for years to create an elegant full-featured solution. PMA 2007 provided us with a chance to debut our latest solutions and the DIMA shootout provided us with recognition that we had been missing. The reaction to our team and products was overwhelming and proved our years of effort was not in vain. Our team members reacted wonderfully to our four awards. The team has an increased sense of pride, and is working harder than ever to deliver best in class solutions."
EKN: "How does this recognition support your marketing strategies and sales efforts?" Murray: "Even just a year ago we were being called "the best kept secret" by customers and major accounts. That has all changed now. Ironically our latest web technologies are more revolutionary than our kiosk products, so we are working hard to raise awareness and promote them. Our sales team and sales activity has changed significantly in recent months. With the addition of Bob Ricci (CEO) and Tom Ceh (VP of Sales), our team has grown and our sales activity has been radically accelerated."
EKN: "What were your overall impressions of the PMA 07 Event?" Murray: "I had very little opportunity to get out of our booth and see much of the show. People I talked with were excited and seemed to be enjoying the show. I heard people using phrases like "cool", "fast", "new", "affordable", "small" and "did you see that..." I got the impression that it was not another year of the same old stuff. It was also good to see an active field of new and existing players after the bloodbath of recent years where vendors of all sizes were closing up shop. People were genuinely optimistic and excited."
Lisa Fasold - Media Contact - Lucidiom provided these insights into winning the Award:
EKN: "What is the importance of being recognized by the Photo Industry to your Team?" Lisa: "PMA, the association and the show, is one of the cornerstones for our business. To be recognized at its biggest event as one of the top kiosk makers gives us great credibility when we're talking to our customers and prospects."
EKN: "How does this recognition support your marketing strategies and sales efforts?" Lisa: "We put the DIMA Award logo on nearly all our marketing materials and our website to help reassure our current customers that they're dealing with an industry leader and to show our prospects that we're consistently recognized as one of the best in the industry. This is the second year in a row we're won a DIMA award."
EKN: "What were your overall impressions of the PMA 07 Event?" Lisa: "PMA always brings the best of the industry together. The education on and off the show floor can't be beat in this market. Our booth was crowded nearly every minute. It was one of our very best shows yet."
Rowan R. Lawson - Marketing Director - Kiosks Eastman Kodak Company provided these insights into winning the Award:
EKN: "What is the importance of being recognized by the Photo Industry to your Team?" Rowan: "The DIMA awards are extremely important awards for the Kodak kiosk team. This is the second year that the DIMA Shoot Out has offered the Consumer Choice Awards, and both years the KODAK Picture Kiosk has won the “Consumer’s Choice” award in every category entered. Kodak also continues the trend of winning at least one DIMA Kiosk Shoot Out award every year since the competition was started in 2003.
It recognizes our continued effort and focus on building the best, most user-friendly Kiosks in the industry. These are consumer-based awards (judged by real end-users of these products) recognizing and supporting Kodak's tradition of making digital imaging technology easy to use. Our continued success in DIMA competition is a clear indication that Kodak continues to master this technology on many levels including design, user interface, new creative products, friendliness and ease of use."
EKN: "How does this recognition support your marketing strategies and sales efforts?" Rowan: "As an impartial third party evaluation, these consumer-based awards help support our selling efforts by providing tangible evidence that reinforce our customers' choice to use KODAK Picture Kiosks in their retail locations. Every one of these awards delivers yet another reason why our Kiosks continue to lead the industry - not only in placements at retail, but more importantly, as consumer-preferred interfaces to digital imaging technology.
Successfully winning all categories in which we completed in DIMA 2007 is a testament to the strength of our product offering, the quality conveyed by the Kodak brand, simplicity of our user-interface design and the approachability we design into each and every KODAK Picture Kiosk."
EKN: "What were your overall impressions of the PMA 07 Event?" Rowan: "PMA has historically been a great opportunity for Kodak to reach its retail and professional customer bases and engage them with new products, services and strategies that will help them grow their respective businesses. 2007 was no exception. In fact, this year, it gave us the opportunity to showcase the breadth of our Retail Printing portfolio including a wide range of in-store, on-line and wholesale products and services.
Attendee responses to the Kodak offering were overwhelmingly positive and some indicated that Kodak had re-invented itself at this year's PMA. As in previous years the, 2007 PMA event enabled Kodak the opportunity to engage with a broad cross-section of our customer base - not only to share our message with them, but also with equal importance, to listen to their specific business needs."
EKN: "It is clear from these companies that they regard the PMA 07 Event to be a critical part of their marketing strategies. We were impressed with the traffic that we observed at all of the booths exhibiting Photo Kiosks. Chad your Team did an outstanding job in preparation and execution of a well organized World Class Event." Chad: "Thanks for those kind words, Robert. The team at PMA literally works all year long on this event to make it as successful as it is. A lot of good people put in a lot of hours, and I’m honored to work with such a dedicated team of talented folks. We’re pleased so many people find this event useful and valuable."
Front Row (left to right):
Chad Iverson, Todd Iverson, Ted Fox, Ralph Iverson, Rod Folland, Beth Dixon, Bill Covey
Middle Row (left to right):
Melissa Smith, Pam Hackworth, Kim Dlouhy, Kathy Zmija, Mary Anne LaMarre, Melissa Aldrich,
Bruce Stroede, Suzi Barger, Yvonne Philpott, George Olsen, Jeff Frazine, Bruce Aldrich
Back Row (left to right):
Chris Kutyna, Steve Noble, Amy McGibbon, Tom Crawford, Jon Rousseau, Chad Munce,
Laura Covey, Pat McNerney, Fred Lopeman, Gary Pageau, Jim Everett, Zonie Thompkins.
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