COMMENT: Brother from another planet!

Brother International contrived to alienate the entire photo industry and, we hope, a significant portion of its retailer customer base, with a full-page ad in Fairfax Sunday papers last weekend.

The ad, which seems to pinch its theme from One Hour Photo, the Robin Williams film of 2003, basically paints photo retailers as threatening sociopaths in an attempt to destroy the retail photo services business and promote home printing as a "safer" alternative for Australian families.

The full-page ad features a shot of a photo retailer behind the counter who looks like a cross between the Robin Williams character, Sy Parish, and Norman Bates from Hitchcock's Psycho, and is accompanied by the text:

“Family Holidays, the upstairs extension, your child's first steps. This office nightmare's seen them all and has his own copies. The staring is creepy, but when he starts making suggestions for what cushions would go better with your new couch or what your daughter wants for Christmas, you know its gone too far.”

The tag line at the bottom of the ad continues: “Choose who you show your photos to. You used to have to visit this guy to get you family photos developed...”

Brother's marketing department seems to have a very poor understanding of the marketplace, as it directs consumers to, among others, Harvey Norman, Big W and Kmart stores, which have a full complement of what Brother regards as “creepy photo technicians” on the payroll. All the very best to the Brother account director next time he or she calls on the buyers from Big W!

This is matched by its advertising agency's lack of imagination and poor understanding of the consumers it is trying to poison the minds of. The latest Consumer Imaging Report indicates that there is a large overlap between people who print at home and people who print at retail – they print at home for convenience and creative purposes and at a store when there are larger numbers of prints required. The market is split between people who print (at home and in store) and people who don't print. And the good news is printing, and particularly printing at retail, is on the rise.

On the other hand, the printer category is, according to the latest Canon Digital Lifestyle Index, a story of falling unit sales and plummeting prices.

Considerable discussion has ensued within the photo industry over the past 24 hours regarding the ad. The original fury at the unprovoked defamation of an entire group of Australian retailers prompted calls to action. On further reflection this was seen by PMA, PICA and leading retailers as not in our best interests. For instance, a public response would be giving a very ordinary piece of marketing communications more “oxygen” than it could ever deserve – provocation might even be the plan.

Brother's PR agency, Mango Communications, did provide us with this initial response:

“The Brother Photo Technician advertisement is part of the Brother 'Office Nightmares' advertising campaign. The campaign plays on nightmare situations consumers often have when using printers in the home or office. Other advertisements in the campaign have focused on paper jams and other common printer errors. The objective of the campaign is to communicate that Brother can help consumers to avoid these frustrations. Brother did not intend to cause any offense with the Photo Technician advertisement and apologises if any offense has been caused.”

PIN has calls in to the marketing communications manager at Brother responsible for the ad, Gabriel Hamid, to try and understand what he and his agency were thinking in letting this piece of “work” see the light of day. Brothers' head office number is 02 98174344.

But despair not – although as a photo retailer you may feel insulted and unfairly maligned, that's probably where the damage stops.   

Your comments are welcome – but please, keep it legal (if not necessarily nice).