How things change: 50 years ago, an industry celebrated a nation’s birthday

On the eve of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the comparison between how the photo industry – and the nation as a whole – is commemorating the event now, compared to the Bicentennial in 1976, is striking. By any measure, the general consumer interest in the FIFA World Cup has eclipsed America250.

As the LA Times pointed out recently, “As America turns 250, the semiquincentennial feels like a dud — a far cry from 1976’s bicentennial blowout, when pop culture and communal celebrations united a weary nation.”

A half-century ago, the U.S. photo industry rallied around the efforts spearheaded by the Photo Marketing Association International (PMA) trade association to bring the industry together to promote picture-taking.

As PMA executive manager, Roy S. Pung, wrote in the March, 1976 issue of Photo Marketing magazine:

With PMA serving as the catalyst, the photo industry has taken a major first step on what will
be a long road of joint promotion and marketing of its product. The result can only be a much bigger share of the leisure time dollar being captured by photography.

The overwhelming response to the Picture America campaign announced last September and launched in January shows in no uncertain terms what an industry can do if it sets its mind, not on capturing part of the other fellow’s photo market, but rather on capturing part of the overall consumer market.

The early months of Picture America have seen members order materials by the millions from PMA headquarters. It has seen requests by the hundreds for materials and kits by non-members. Dozens of suppliers have adopted the special logo and are including it in their own campaigns.

In that same issue of the magazine, some of the industry promotion efforts for Picture America included a national photo contest in a partnership with Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Inc. and PMA.

Today, the lack of photo-industry cohesiveness has missed this opportunity. National Photo Month, once the mainstay of many retail companies’ marketing calendars, is a forgotten relic. And, perhaps this is just the natural state of the photo industry now, which is by all measures much bigger and more widespread than in 1976. Exposures are now digitally captured in the billions each years, as opposed to millions on silver-halide media. Output options have expanded beyond simple snapshots to now include prints, posters, wall decor, photo books, and a seemingly endless array of innovations.

Home movies have been replaced by reels on social media.

On the other hand, there is no pressing industry need to encourage consumers to take more pictures. In fact, recent industry data shows consumers are overwhelmed and stressed out by the number of pictures in their camera roll. Consumers need no reminder to take pictures. They need better tools to manage the pictures they have and to take advantage of the many digital and printed options for revisiting those memories.

Maybe by America’s 300th birthday in 2076, there will be a resurgence in industry cooperation and patriotism. There’s always hope!

(By the way, shout-out to Rick Voight at Vivid-Pix for the use of a Memory Station scanning station to preserve some of these PMA and industry memories. We used the ScanSnap Scanner SV600 to scan numerous back issues of PMA magazines and research reports.)