July 28, 2011: The annual Consumer Imaging in Australia research project, which has been running since 2007, has been quietly dropped by PMA.
Peter Rose, PMA director, Australian activities, said that the Photo Information Council (PIC), a group of retailers and wholesalers selected by PICA and PMA to allocate industry funds to educational and industry-growing projects, decided this year to divert available funds into promoting the 2011 Imaging and Entertainment exhibition. The show had a promotional budget reported as $150,000. The annual industry show is also the source of the funds used by the PIC,
The report costs around $40,000 per year. It has been based on a questionnaire jointly designed by PMA and PICA, and conducted by the Australian Centre for Retail Studies at Monash University. Responses came from an online panel of 2000 Australian households. The data was then sent to PMA in Jackson and developed into the finished report. It follows a similar format to research conducted in the US market.
Peter Rose said the high cost of the report, coupled with low levels of interest and access by PMA members, led the PIC to drop the project.
It has been available to PMA members on a password-protected section of the PMA International site, and up until 2009 also via password on the PICA website.
It formed the basis for a keynote session at the annual PMA convention each year, presented in 2010 and 2009 by Bill McCurry. Photo Counter has also prepared in-depth features based on the Consumer Report over the past two years, and it was earlier covered in a similar fashion by Photo & Imaging News .
BELOW: Households with digital still cameras, 2010. Beyond their value as an annual snapshot, the annual consumer reports were beginning to form a longitudinal study of Australians involvement with the imaging industry.
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