Tech-EM Chat's WIth Pentax's Bob McGrath

Tech-EM recently sat down with Bob McGrath, trade show manager for Pentax to talk about how the company's marketing portfolio is evolving, the importance of ROI and more.

Vital Statistics:
Age: Old enough to have experienced the 60’s and remember them
Lives in: Arvada, Colorado
Office based in: Golden, Colorado
Tenure at Pentax: Nine years
Size of team: Nine

How is the marketing portfolio evolving?
We are going where the eyeballs are, and applying our understanding of the socio-economic demographics that best predict how to get those eyeballs to pay attention to us. This means we are augmenting our traditional media buys, dealer promotions, POP displays and trade shows with media-related events, rolling out street teams with our unique [mobile] BobCar to drive traffic into our retail outlets, and of course establishing outreach to our numerous blogging communities and forums. We’ve experimented with YouTube videos and will probably delve deeper into other word-of-mouth media as we discover brand ambassadors whose passion for our brand conveys additional credibility.

How is your role changing?
In addition to managing numerous shows for the Pentax brand of optics—including sport optics, security optics and digital cameras—I help with some special events and street team activities. Tighter budgets and my longevity in my position have resulted in my consulting more with each division [so we can] share resources and save money for the company. I’ve been spending more time on ROI these days too.

Pop quiz: Experiential marketing is...
How we help people “take away” our brand. People want to collect and share experiences, and our challenge is how we touch each one, in a memorable way, so that he or she has a great experience and associates it with our brand.

The event marketing sliver of your marketing mix is changing how?
As we reach out to cultivate relationships with our customers and dealers, event marketing increases in importance since it delivers added impact on a one-to-one level.

Being a global brand has its benefits. But what are challenges of managing a global brand?
People have many expectations of global brands. Brand marketing often is simply trying to set or re-set expectations, explaining why we’re doing things a certain way, and reminding people of our brand relevance. Sometimes we’re successful in our own market, and can offer suggestions to the other Pentax regional offices worldwide, and sometimes we’re learning from them.

How do you help ensure your marketing is integrated?
As the Trade Show Manager I strive to find areas of commonality in our ad campaigns, to empower our leadership’s inspiration to become tangible, and to be cognizant of the queries we see on the message boards and in other online communities. It is in leveraging shared resources that we best integrate and deliver value in this era of tight budgets.

What do you do in your free time? What are your hobbies?
I am a newshound and keep tuned to CNN or the web when I am on the road. I love to travel and experience various areas of the US and foreign cultures when I can.