Quick impressions from the Photo Marketing Association show

As many of our digital scrapbooking and photography friends know I work for a large photo lab here in Tennessee and have worked in the photo industry for (gulp!) 30 years.  One aspect of my job is staffing or attending trade shows and conferences for the lab and previously for Kodak.  While travel can get old sometimes (see my “been to Vegas again and again” post), I enjoy meeting new customers, catching up with old ones, learning new things, and seeing new products to spark my mind for how I can help my customers’ succeed and grow in their business.

Too bad I wasn’t able to do any of that at this year’s show!

Wow – what a bad show.  And that’s a major diss from someone as positive as me. The show was in Anaheim, CA this year – why? no one really knew.  But it seemed to keep the attendees and vendors away.  I know for us it was much harder to travel to and more expensive to stay.  The show was easy to move around and you could easily get helped in a booth – meaning there was no one there.  And some of the major industry players (Canon, Epson) didn’t exhibit.  I hope that doesn’t spell the death of this once great show.

So on the bright side what did I learn and what did I see?

I learned a fair amount (really emphasized what I had recently learned) about social media, Search Engine Optimization, and how a website can be used to promote and further your business.  I picked up one tip that will help us significantly promote our new site for ordering additional photo gifts and ideas – so that made the learning worthwhile.

We saw and purchased a great suite of software from Topaz Labs. The software has great uses for digital scrapbookers and digital photographers.  I’m working on a review and will post it within two weeks.

Kodak used Microsoft’s Surface technology to showcase their products.  It generated a lot of traffic and interest in their booth and made it easy to find out about their offerings.  Here’s a very quick video of me using one of the tables:

Unlike the last few years, there was no scrapbooking booths at all.  I think at one time the  independent photo stores had thought that scrapbooking might be a natural addition to their offerings but I feel both the photo industry and the scrapbooking industry saw it wasn’t quite the right fit and have given up.  I know paper scrappers when they think “I gotta go grab a new kit” aren’t thinking their local camera store. 

So that’s it.  All around a disappointing show.  I’m looking forward to the Wedding and Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) show next week (3/8-3/10/2010) in Las Vegas.  I’ll try and do reports from the show through my Facebook account and might even be able to get in a blog post or two.

I didn’t even get a doughnut…

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