RED's militaristic branding and marketing.

[Michael Hastings]

His words, not mine, thus the quotation marks.

You took it out of context which was an adjective before "symbolism" and stuck it in front of "camera", a common but inappropriate technique.

But as far as the dumb part it was referring to that he should have decided not to buy the camera he thought was best for his needs and go away rather than simply and politely telling the manufacturer that he didn't like that type of branding and making cogent suggestions for what he thought would be a better way.

PS
By the way, I agree with Jacek that Red has very capable and sophisticated marketing people - so they clearly are choosing this type of branding in spite of suggestions by paying customers to go in a different direction. But sophisticated/capable people make mistakes and some of us think it may be at least a minor one. As some have pointed out, those of you that own RED have a financial stake in how that works out.

[Donald MJ Anderson]

I remember a simpler time - A simpler time when REDs branding was either considered COOL or CHILDISH. Now CHILDISH has been replaced with FAR RIGHT. Sad....really.

Extreme POV`s absolutely everywhere now.

[Bobby Farokhzad]

Alexa owners reading this thread must be getting a good laugh at our expense.

[Michael Hastings]

Alexa owners reading this thread must be getting a good laugh at our expense.

Yup

Which is the point of those of us suggesting it is going to negatively impact the value of RED products and owner investments - whether you think RED should change or not to something more "wholesome". It used to be that there was nothing close in terms of performance at the RED price points versus ARRI and Sony - so RED could be whoever they wanted to be and you didn't have much choice for serious alternatives unless you wanted to pay tens of thousands more to lose the militaristic branding.

That's not the case anymore. Anyone with knowledge of shooting (), lighting, color correction, etc. knows that there are at least a dozen cameras in similar or lower price points that can provide viable source material for virtually any level of production. (think about the fact that Arris at 3.4K are used in some IMAX releases.)

[Mark Phelan]

You took it out of context which was an adjective before "symbolism" and stuck it in front of "camera", a common but inappropriate technique.

Will disagree about this because it was implied by what he was saying.

But as far as the dumb part it was referring to that he should have decided not to buy the camera he thought was best for his needs and go away rather than simply and politely telling the manufacturer that he didn't like that type of branding and making cogent suggestions for what he thought would be a better way.

PS
By the way, I agree with Jacek that Red has very capable and sophisticated marketing people - so they clearly are choosing this type of branding in spite of suggestions by paying customers to go in a different direction. But sophisticated/capable people make mistakes and some of us think it may be at least a minor one. As some have pointed out, those of you that own RED have a financial stake in how that works out.

I too agree with Jacek's point about RED's marketing. It's up to them to do whatever they choose, and clearly it has been working. The ironic thing is I took a stroll over to the RED.com site and am hard pressed to find anything that is a "militaristic" sounding name nowadays. So what exactly is the problem here?

[Michael Hastings]

Will disagree about this because it was implied by what he was saying.

Fair enough, Mark.

I too agree with Jacek's point about RED's marketing. It's up to them to do whatever they choose, and clearly it has been working. The ironic thing is I took a stroll over to the RED.com site and am hard pressed to find anything that is a "militaristic" sounding name nowadays. So what exactly is the problem here?

It isn't a big problem - given the competitive environment RED has much greater challenges ahead - It's really just a suggestion.


PS:

What have we done about that spoon arsenal? (Joke Ref Phil for those that haven't read whole thread.)

[Alexander Sutton-Hough]

https://www.instagram.com/p/CGAnpl6h..._web_copy_link



"ENLIST AND BE THE FIRST TO KNOW. LINK IN BIO."

Combining the word ENLIST with an aggressive death skull conjures up the imagery of war, weapons, hate and violence. That was on purpose by their social media team to keep that lifestyle branding.

[Ben Roper]

I think Komodo is very well placed - good name and nice neutral but solid-looking design. Red moving in the right direction.

[Michael Tiemann]

I think Komodo is very well placed - good name and nice neutral but solid-looking design. Red moving in the right direction.

You haven't looked very closely at the packaging. It's what prompted my response as Post #2 in this thread.

[Scot Yount]

I chose RED because in Los Angeles a lot of my clients were demanding RED for projects so I invested where the market was demanding to make a living. I had that discussion with myself and weighed all my camera options, but the clients I have been working with demand RED for the camera tech reputation and specs.

So...I am just trying to understand this. You bought a RED camera because everyone you were working with wants them....but now you think they WON'T want them because they have a skull on them? (which they had before?). I think it is pretty clear that RED's marketing is very intentional. Lots of RED folks come from skateboarding, bike messengers, snowboarders, extreme skiers, motocross and surfers. On and on.

So...yeah, maybe those people like the marketing and nomenclature that RED has chosen in the past. Again, while I own a so called forged Weapon camera, and though I was in the military for 6 years, and though I don't like the marketing myself, I have never had a client come up to me and ask me about skulls.