Just a day or so, ago, I posted an item about an effort by businesses in Naples, Florida that have experienced a drop on business inquiries due to misconceptions about beach conditions, related to the BP oil spill.

Coincidently, USA today ran a front page article on the same issue, today. The article describes the greater geographical issue affecting businesses for general travel, destination weddings, and the like.

Thank you to the Naples Chapter of the National Association of Wedding Professionals for inviting to present a seminar and meeting talk, yesterday. It was a treat to meet so many new people and enjoy this most beautiful area in Southwest Florida.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Josh Ozersky is a James Beard Award–winning food writer wrote an item on Time.com, titled: Great Wedding Food: Tips from a Newly Married Critic. His sweeping generalizations placed the entire industry of off-premise wedding caterers under-the-bus.

The item has created quite a controversy and generated massive response from the industry, since its original posting on June 15th. For some reason, TIme.com has blocked further comments on the article.

Here is the incendiary conclusion, quoted directly from the article.

“So here’s my advice to anyone who is starting to plan a wedding: Forget the caterer! Plug directly into the source of your hometown’s culinary delights, and happiness, enduring and radiant, will immediately follow. I’m still glowing, and my only regret is not getting to take any of the cake or lasagna home.”

– Josh Ozersky

Mike Roman, CaterSource, sent a stinging email in response to the article. He frames the key issues, and incredibly off-base approach to Ozersky’s article with surgical precision.

Opinion: There is nothing worse than overplaying a point, using sweeping generalizations in the process. To have such comment coming from a food industry professional is lame at best, perhaps crossing the line to unethical. The article is a new low in wedding marketing misinformation.

I encourage you to read the original Time.com piece, the comments, and Mike Roman’s response.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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About now, you might think I have some sort of grudge against Bella Pictures. You’d be wrong. I’m just incredulous at the marketing techniques it employs to sell its services to brides.

For those getting up to speed, Bella Pictures is a nationwide photography booking agency that employs local photographers on a job-by-job basis. The company first contracts with the bride, and then creates a match with a photographer. The results are all-over-the-board, judging by a huge sample of online reviews.

A while back, Bella Pictures created a second company, Studio Blue, using, essentially, the same business model, but positioning it as a lower price service for a more budget-conscioous bride.

The image shown, upper right, appears on the welcome screen of the Bella Pictures website. That, in itself, seems pretty odd. It’s hard to understand why a photography company would want to send you away from its site, to another photography site, even if they are under the same ownership.

The banner touts Wedding Photography for Under $1000. The banner link takes you to the Studio Blue welcome screen. All well and good, so far. Studio Blue presents a nicely designed site, with portfolio and sleek system to check availability and book services.

Here’s the rub: If you enter your date and location, or just proceed to the packages and pricing screen, there is something missing….. Photography at under $1000.

Photography coverage begins at $1240 (6 hours). Recommended coverage being 8 hours, plus an album, priced at $2340, inclusive.

Excuse me, but what part of Wedding Photography at under $1000 have I missed.

Opinion: The banner information is so obviously misleading that further comment won’t add much. I just continue to be dumbfounded how one company can be brazenly manipulative. This type of wedding marketing strategy does a disservice to brides, and to the wedding industry, generally.

If you think I’ve overlooked anything, please feel free to jump in, and comment with your thoughts.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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It is incredible that businesses continue to twist and misrepresent their recognition, in an effort to improve their industry reputation in the eyes of the bride.

There are various ‘industry awards’ presented trade associations that have real value. One goes through a nomination, submission, and judging process that has actual validity.

There media awards that solicit voting from the public that are flawed in a variety of ways.

Let’s start with some clear misdirection award magic. In a rotating banner (shown upper right), Bella Pictures indicates being the most awarded photographers in the country.

The page link takes you to listing of a half dozen items. The first four have some value.

• Best of the Knot
• Brides Choice Awards from the Wedding Wire
• Certified By The Guide (Here Comes The Guide)
• Project Wedding

In my previous life in the DJ entertainment field, my company was certified by Here Comes The Guide. It was a rare process of reference checks before being allowed to advertise in the guide. It was thorough, checking a variety of references, primarily as to one’s manner of doing business, as well as quality of work. I was happy to have had my business, Designer Music, pass with flying colors.

However, it was not, and is not, an award. One should never claim it to be seo.

The other three are media-related popularity contests. It is not shocking that random happy customers from a large sample, give a company kudos for good work. My comparison would be the city weekly magazine that every metro has. The public submits votes for their favorite eateries, ice cream shops, and the like. In Las Vegas, the eatery chosen best Italian Restaurant in Las Vegas Weekly, as voted on by the public was The Olive Garden. I would suggest that the choice is low hanging fruit for the masses, but does not really represented an exceptional or the outstanding Italian Restaurant.

Bella’s listings of the Better Business Bureau and TRUSTe are ludicrous and totally inappropriate to be labeled as awards.

Nowhere is there an award listing from a photography or wedding photography trade association. That would be an award from one’s peers…. professionals.

These half dozen listings include three items that are clearly not awards. The other three are flawed, in my opinion.

When your company wins a real award, shout it from the rooftops. Until then, knock it off!

Seriously, would you want your company to be recognized as the Olive Garden of your business category? Really?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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I thought long and hard before writing this post, because it criticizes the work of another wedding marketing blogger. However, I find this post, Valuing Your Wedding Services: Am I Undercutting? to contain some serious misinformation, refuted by the Marketing 101 class I took at the University of Arizona, and what I’ve learned every year, in the decades since.

One should read the entire post, for context, but this section stands out like a sore thumb.

“The Factors that Should Determine Pricing
Prices should be determined based on standard factors including:
• A calculation of how much you want to earn in a year
• The cost to you of the products or services that you sell
• A factor of your overall annual business expenses including marketing, office supplies and labor”

Excuse me, but this is unadulterated nonsense.

The three items noted have some relationship to your cost of goods or services, but they have absolutely no relationship to what you may elect to charge, or someone may be willing to pay for those goods or services.

Prospects and customers often have unrealistic budgets, based on throwing darts, antiquated fees paid by their sister-in-law, five years ago in Oshkosh, or some other obscure set of factors. Actual spending in your market, typically will cover a range of fees, from the part-time, amateur, to the platinum level, high service professional.

When talking to a prospect about working with them, the notion of your costs is the furthest thing from their mind. They are concerned with service and price.

What you might charge, and whether that will be accepted by client after client is based on the following.

Making the case for that the price you charge has specific value worth paying for, by a ready, willing, and able buyer. You must be able to clearly differentiate your specific client benefits from your competitors. And, this does not necessarily mean you will have the highest fees for service. It does mean you will be perceived as the right fit for the client.

In the final analysis, our worth is not based upon our costs of doing business or what we feel our goods and services should sell for.

Note: Normally, I try to mask my annoyance with bad information. This, however, is one of those times that I simply cannot.

==

Just one sidebar of advice: If you’re constantly sold out, and never turning away business because of price, then your pricing is too low.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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In my world, yesterday was a particularly annoying day. It seemed that everywhere I turned, I was dealing with someone who presented more roadblocks and hurdles, than customer service skills or solutions.

The final straw was my Investment Services Advisor at Chase. Since 12/22/09, I’ve been trying to accomplish something relatively simple… gain online access to management my account, and withdraw funds, if needed.

The final hurdle required filling out a form to enable withdrawal of funds. The regional manager of investment services was supposed to send me that form two weeks ago. Turns out there is no printed form. You have to sit at the desk of the investment advisor while he/she enters the data. Did I mention that I needed to have a voided check from account. Account number and routing number would not do. Oops, another trip home and back.

What scares the daylights out of me, is that the Investment Advisor cannot seem to accomplish anything without getting on the phone to some other person, in some other office. I’m not certain whether this is an absence of knowledge or a bureaucratic jungle. It’s probably some of both.

It made me ask myself a few questions that probably are worth asking yourself, too.

What do your customers or prospects find difficult, when doing business with you? What is a struggle, that should not be? And if you could simplify matters, how might it benefit your business?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Wedding Industry Marketing Professionals: Do I have your attention? Good? Because this post is likely to make you squirm.

Recently, my friend Debbie Hansen (Bridal Spectacular), posted a seething blog item about how one of her bridal show competitors stretched the truth (aka outright lied) about a number of factors concerning his show. I know she wrestled with this before going public, because it ran the risk of sounding like sour grapes.

Sour grapes be damned! Her competitor had crossed the line, traversed the grey area, and passed into the twilight zone of ethics way too many times.

Ahh, no one will no (Really?)

On a related note, last December, I posted an item titled: Ersatz Awards Don’t Reflect Well On Anyone. That post referenced a national scam on awards, not a local one. However, the local bridal-show-promoter-in-question (that Debbie blogged about) also offers an ‘awards program’ with highly questionable standards no standards.

My B.S. meter can identify a phony awards program without great difficulty. Here is what to look for.

• It lists award categories, but no objective criteria is provided. Just fill in a name.
• Voters are not really constrained. Any industry business person or bride can vote. As they say in Chicago, “Vote Early and Vote Often!”
• There are no stated committee of judges. It’s a ‘back room’ situation.
• The anonymous body of judges/voters selects ‘winners’ behind closed doors with no criteria, supervision, or oversight.

Would you do business with this person?

So here’s the rub. If you are award winner selected for an award, what does it mean and what should you do. Everyone likes to have awards plaques on the wall or trophies on their credenza.

(Mind you, the local show-promoter-in-question, bragged to another wedding professional that, in his previous life as a vendor, he had plaques made up for phony awards to impress prospects that came to his office).

Over the years, I have worked on NACE awards, nationally and locally. They have criteria, standards, are judged legitimately. If you win one, it is real; not a stroke for some future favor.

The aforementioned award recognition isn’t even a good knock-off. It’s as phony as they come.

Last year, I pointedly asked several award winners how the felt abut the award process, and being selected to receive recognition. I asked, knowing that they had proudly displayed their awards at the very next bridal show. Unsuspecting brides were left with the impression that these businesses were exemplary companies. They may or may not be exemplary, but one couldn’t conclude that from these phony awards.

To a one, they shifted uncomfortably and said (paraphrasing),

“It doesn’t really matter. The brides don’t know. Who cares?”

“I care,” I shot back. Other wedding professionals know it’s baloney. “You have other legitimate success and awards to showcase. Why do you lower yourself to showcase a bogus award?”

Silence!!

My Personal Policy: From more than 30 years in this industry, I have a very short list of people I choose not to do business with. Currently, just three people. Not on the word of others, but from my first hand experience and personal observation.

In the vernacular:

“If you sleep with dogs, you’re likely to get fleas.”

So… now that we’ve had this little monologue, just how big a hypocrite are YOU? If not you, do you have any friends with Situational Ethics?

Would you accept the award? Would you display in your office? Would you display it a bridal show?

Or would you display a spine by rejecting it, outright?

Your thoughts,

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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Not Michael James Slattery

In the last month, industry ethical and business industry issues have been front and center on The Wedding Marketing Blog. There have have been a number of posts related to Bella Pictures, its overall business model, changing personnel at the top level of the company, questionable public relations, bad bridal advice, and philisophical differences in their leadership ranks.

Today, former Bella Pictures photographer, Michael James Slattery, launched a blog lambasting the company. Slattery did not just arrive on the scene. He has shot over 500 wedding events for Bella Pictures; first as a contracted freelancer, then as an employee.

The change in his relationship with Bella Pictures begin in April 2008 when George White, co-founder, VP Photography was replaced by Tahra Makinson-Sanders. Suffice it to say, the relationship between Makinson-Sanders and Slattery became frosty, over time, resulting in his termination about a week ago.

Comment: The curious issue for me is how a veteran of 500 wedding events could suddenly become so easily discarded. You’ll find his emails to be both angry and aggressive. His tone reached this level in emails, essentially because he could found no satisfaction in phone calls. It is his belief that he was not getting straight answers or explanations, and. well….. he went off.

Draw your own conclusions by reading Slattery’s blog which posts his overview and an extensive exchange of emails.

Why I’m still interested in this issue:

• Because I don’t feel we know the entire story, yet.
• There was an incredible surge in reader interest in these storis.
• I am always concerned about the welfare of the freelancer or micro-business.
• New business models are interesting; whether they succeed or fail. The jury is still out.
• Client satisfaction (or lack thereof).

Please read Slattery’s blog post, and post your comments here.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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For those that are just joining the conversation, Bella Pictures is national wedding photography company in business since 2003. As a practical matter, Bella Pictures a booking agent for available wedding photographers in many major markets, across the country. (if you know the background, just skip down the page)

A thorough examination of online reviews, from brides, shows a random sampling of satisfaction. Essentially, satisfaction was a coin-flip. There were happy brides and miserable brides.

I became particularly aware of Bella Pictures about a year ago, when their VP of Business Development, Jenny Lefcourt held a couple of TV interviews on Fox Chicago and Fox Los Angeles. These interviews were incredibly misleading and minimized the value of other wedding professionals.

Yesterday, this blog reported that Bella co-founder and Chief Photographer, Bob Davis, had been forced out of the company in March 2009. His comments clearly indicated a difference of opinion in the direction of the company.

Part of the evolution of Bella Pictures is a ‘partnership’ with Marriott Hotels, as its preferred photography vendor. More recently, Bella Pictures has ventured into videography. I cannot speak to the success or quality of the videography division, as it is too new. From the description on its websites, the videography program follows the same model as photography.

A recent QuantCast report of Bella’s website activity shows about 150,000 visitors per month, among other details.

But yet there is more: Some careful research turns up a photography company called StudioBlue. The research and booking procedure, for brides, is strikingly similar to Bella Pictures.

There reason for that is because Bella Pictures owns StudioBlue. On the Privacy Policy screen, the first paragraph reads as follow.

“Your trust and confidence are our highest priority. Bella Pictures, Inc., as the provider of the Studio Blue service (“Bella” or “we”), is dedicated to maintaining and protecting your privacy. This includes the privacy of both your information and your pictures. By using our service and by visiting this website, you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy (the “Policy”). This Policy explains what information we collect and how we use the information so we can continue to provide outstanding service to you.”

This is confirmed at the bottom of the same page, and it is noted in the Domain Name Registration for StudioBlue.com.

Opinion and Analysis: One can only speculate as to the intentions of Bella’s creation of spinoff, StudioBlue.com. It certainly turns up the heat even more on local, independent photographers and creates yet more confusion of the bride, on her first search for a professional photographer.

And there is even more confusion:

• Studio Blue Design for museums
• Studio Blue Pilates instruction
• Studio Blue Digital Print and Copy
• Studio Blue Recording
• The Blue Studio Artists Work Space
• Studio Blue Photo – Connecticut Photographer
• Studio Blue Digital Photography
• … there are more, but I’ll stop here

From the photographers I’ve communicated with, who have worked with Bella Pictures, there is confirmation of the roller coaster service and widely varied experience of photographers assigned to its bookings.

As wedding professional peers, please study the mounting information, good, bad and indifferent, and form your own opinion as to whether their operations are favorable for the bride or photographers, at large.

Get informed. Discuss the matter with other wedding professionals. Have an opinion. Voice it.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

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Several weeks ago, The Wedding Marketing Blog posted an item, noting the disinformation contained in a Chicago Fox TV interview with Bella Pictures, former VP of Business Development, Jenny Lefcoourt. In that discussion, Lefcourt self-promoted Bella Pictures, and then went on to give some very ragged advice on saving money in other areas of a wedding. The low-light was its entertainment segment, suggesting that bride might ‘dump the DJ’ in favor of using an iPod.

Subsequently,The Wedding Marketing Blog posted another Lefcourt interview with a Los Angeles Fox TV Affiliate showing brides how they should pose to ‘shed a few pounds.’

Despite being first aired, in 2008, these interview had been missed by many wedding professionals. Representation of the clips caused a fresh firestorm about a variety of issues. Links to these blog posts popped up on many industry message boards and discussion groups.

Today, there is  something new to report. On the Open Source Photo message board, a message was posted by former Co-founder and Chief Photographer of Bella Pictures, Bob Davis.

The carefully worded message made some of the following points.

• Davis shared his “disappointment” with the Fox TV Interview (Chicago segment)
• He makes it known that “he is no longer with Bella Pictures”
• Davis goes on to explain that “…his values were no longer in alignment with Bella as of March 2009, and he was let go.” One might characterize the situation as philosophical differences (my words, not Mr. Davis).
• He gives a direct, but clearly-worded warning to photographers, reading his post, to “Please enter into any working arrangement with Bella Pictures with your eyes and expectations wide open.”

Analysis and Opinion: Bob Davis left Bella Pictures quite recently. You should read his entire post to get the full flavor of it. I read the tone as a lament. He is clearly expressing that Bella Pictures has strayed from its original concept and he was no longer comfortable with it.

His ‘warning to photographers’ should further concern about the practices of Bella Pictures. Davis does not address brides, as the Open Source Photo Message Board is a forum for professionals; however, one can only speculate what he might tell them.

In my study of many online comments of brides on various other forums, the random satisfaction of their customers makes continuity and consistency the major bugaboo with Bella Pictures. The major one, but there are others.

Despite the fact the Bella Pictures has an inconsistent track record in their core competency, photography, they have expanded into videography.

When you hear such sad comments from Co-Founder and former Chief Photographer of Bella Pictures, it should give you great pause for concern.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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