Century Color Labs

The PPA Convention was held last weekend in Tampa, Florida. It has been Century Color’s ritual to go every year and get the scoop on the industry. As a vendor showcasing at a tradeshow you sometimes don’t get the opportunity to see what
Tradeshow floorelse is happening. It was nice to play photographer and see all of the upcoming products without having to be stuck at a booth.

Last year the show was in San Antonio, Texas and it was freezing. There was even ice on the palm
Palm tree outside conventiontrees. The weather in Tampa was awesome! The walk from our hotel to the convention center was great and between heavy meals it was nice to get some exercise. The convention itself was jam packed with photographers. I attended a few conferences and they were completely full. Even the overflow rooms were packed!

We (Greg, Brian, and myself) didn’t really see anything different than last year, just improvements on existing products. There were a few newcomers to the show including FINAO, an album company that I
FINAO boothused for a wedding I photographed last year. I ordered a 10x10 flush-mounted album and it was beautiful! It came wrapped in a specialty paper with dried flowers, which left a definite impression. Check out their website at http://www.finaoonline.com.

One concept I did bring home from the show was that marketing is more important than ever. I sat in on an Ann Monteith seminar and if you ever get the chance she is definitely someone to go see. Marketing is so important because anyone can have a great product or service but if no one knows about it, what’s the
Brian enjoying some down timepoint? If you really want to set yourself apart from competitors and the “weekend photographers”, you need to step up your marketing game. This September will mark Century Color’s 40^th anniversary and we will be beefing up our marketing effort with more advertising, a revamped website, blog articles, newsletters, etc. which will help you market more products to your customers. We’ve even created a website called http://www.studiosamplesonline.com that has all of Century Color’s products without the pricing. This makes it easy for you to show your clients new products quickly and easily. Be on the lookout for our latest products, marketing materials, and off-season promotions.