COVID-19 and the photo & video ecosystem:
Impact, Mitigation, Silver Lining
Why this survey?
It’s hard to describe the impact COVID-19 has had so far without sounding like a broken record –the one you keep hearing over and over in the news, or when talking with colleagues, customers or industry partners. In many parts of the world the human tragedy and economic impact are such that they were, until recently, unfathomable – and we are not even close to seeing the end of the tunnel.
Like so many other industries that rely on humans being in near proximity to each other when producing, selling or consuming products or services, our photo and video industry is suffering. Worldwide digital camera sales dropped 53% YoY in March; worldwide smartphone sales dropped 12% YoY in Q1, their largest Q1 decline ever. Many photo printing plants and photo retail stores were forced to close, 75% of the commercial photographers/videographers believe that 80% or more of their jobs have been cancelled; school yearbook companies have missed their most important season; photo & video tradeshows and conference have been cancelled or postponed – and the list goes on.
You don’t need this report to have it rubbed in how unprecedentedly bad this all is. But where we believe we can help is by enabling all of us to develop new ideas and get inspired by how our fellow photo/video ecosystem executives are responding to the crisis, whether they’re helping their COVID-stricken communities[1], deploying measures to mitigate the impact of the crisis, or rethinking their entire business strategy in order to position themselves as well as possible for the aftermath. And yes, some of them do see a silver lining and have inspiring suggestions that they’re willing to share with their industry colleagues.
When you read their comments, note that nobody pretends to have the ultimate answer – we’re all figuring out the best course of action as we go along, while the situation keeps changing on a daily basis.
As quite a few of you have already shared your experiences and perspectives directly with my partner Alexis Gerard or me, we decided to more proactively gather opinions from throughout the broader photo and video ecosystem and share these in the form of a free report. To this purpose we ran the COVID-19 Mitigation and What's Next Survey from April 15 to May 1, which we promoted not only to our Visual 1st Perspectives readers, but also through the help of these trade associations: piv (Photoindustrie-Verband), The Imaging Alliance, and IPI. Many thanks!
Representatives of 53 companies from different parts of the photo & video ecosystem and even different parts of the world (see chapter 2) responded and took the time to share their experiences and perspectives. We do realize that we asked them to share their take on sensitive – to some extent painful and still unsettled – topics, and we are very much indebted to them for doing so!
Note that the majority of the survey consists of answers to open questions, which are not always easy to summarize, nor necessarily applicable to all photo or video ecosystem vendors. But they don’t have to be. You’ll be able to read their comments verbatim, learn from the ones that apply to your situation, get inspired and hopefully use the insights to your benefit!
Note also that the respondents had the option to indicate whether they were open to have their comments attributed to them or preferred these to be treated anonymously (they could indicate this separately for each of the 3 main sections: Impact, Mitigation, and Silver Lining / Suggestions).
Check out the free report by clicking the Download button on the right!
[1] Such as by retrofitting their production facilities to produce face masks or protective shields.
The COVID-19 Mitigation and What's Next Survey Report has the following chapters:
Intro, Summary, Perspectives
1. About the respondents
2. Impact
3. Mitigation
4. Silver Lining &
Suggestions5. About Us
The report counts 25 pages.
Publication date:
May 2020
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