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Wedding News & Analysis: Assets of Bella Pictures sold to CPI, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart and Sears

Posted: 29 Jan 2011 10:19 AM PST




Bella Pictures at work

Readers of The Wedding Marketing Blog know that I’ve been no fan of Bella Pictures and its business model. Research of customer satisfaction via wedding message boards and services such as Yelp! demonstrate that customer satisfaction with Bella Pictures is an inverted bell curve. Lots of lows and highs. Not much in the middle.

In reading customer evaluations, one must realize that any praise and dissatisfaction is directed in several directions. The sales process, the company sales representative, the photographer, and the finished product. Sometimes, the comments name specific people. Mostly, the comments (good or bad) reference the company, Bella Pictures.

For those unaware of Bella Pictures, their business model is this: Bella Pictures is, essentially, a polished internet marketing store front that services as a sales service to the bride, and booking agent to independent photographers. Assignments are bid out to photographers as the wedding day approaches. Reality is that the bride may get a highly skilled photographer or a rookie. Hence, the wild swing in customer satisfaction.

This blog has railed against Bella’s misrepresentations in the media (TV) and on their website (awards), and fuzzy math… among others. The latter, continues to misrepresent, as of this posting.

About the sale:
You may hear that Bella Pictures was sold to Wal-Mart and Sears. That representation is not quite accurate. In fact, the assets of Bella Pictures was sold to CPI, a subsidiary of Wal-Mart and Sears. CPI offers boilerplate portrait photography at Wal-Mart and Sears at over 3000 locations.

Here is the official statement:

We are pleased to announce the acquisition of Bella Pictures assets by a subsidiary of CPI Corp, the nation’s leading provider of studio and portrait photography with over 3,000 studios across North America. CPI is excited to work with the photography and video communities to grow the superb base of talent established by Bella Pictures.

The digital capabilities and infrastructure of CPI combined with Bella’s talented network of photographers and filmmakers will help us achieve our shared mission of providing high quality, high value photography and video services to thousands of additional couples in a vastly expanded number of markets across the country.

What does this mean for you?
· Future growth of the business leading to more assignments
· Planning and assignment of the 2011 season will continue without disruption through the Assignment Desk
· There will be no disruption in the pay cycle

We look forward to sharing more details about the future opportunity that this acquisition will provide, and to growing the Bella business with you.

News Analysis and Opinion:
Bella Picture’s Assets: What does that mean, exactly? High-tech equipment, the business name and reputation, existing marketing, company procedures, past client list, existing photography contracts, roster of freelance photographers?????

First off, existing photography contracts are not an asset; they are a liability.

My sense is that CPI sees value in the marketing and outreach of Bella Pictures. CPI appears, currently, to offer on-premise portraiture. The acquisition would appear to be an attempt to widen their scope to off-premise photography at weddings and perhaps other events.

Ruthless Opinion:
What this means for the bride, other photographers, and the wedding industry

From my personal experience, working as a DJ Entertainer at close to 1000 weddings, I assert that there is no other bride-vendor relationship that requires positive personal chemistry than the bride-photographer. I’m certain that a poll of day-of wedding professionals would provide the same conclusion.

From that premise, the business model of having a photographer, assigned to the bride and groom, without a face-to-face meeting, was/is a flawed proposition. If CPI, for whatever reason, believes they can leverage this clunky model via Wal-Mart and Sears, they are employing wishful thinking.

This is not a shot at ALL big businesses. I’m a huge fan of some big businesses and a detractor of others. However, some business-customer relationships work better when the service is supplied by a small business. We would like to believe that all our sales become relationships, but most wedding sales are transactional, one-time propositions. A photographer, more than most, should have a connection and chemistry, with the client, that is more than transactional.

For photographers: (Andy’s snarky response to the bride) “You’re thinking of having your photography service from Wal-Mart? Are you looking to them for their reputation of fabulous personal service? I’m sure they’ll be worth every nickel.”

For Bella Pictures business partners: Shame on Marriott, Renaissance Hotels, Maggiano’s Little Italy, and Kimpton Hotels for being ‘partnered’ with Bella Pictures. These are, otherwise, excellent companies that have, in my view, put a financial relationship with Bella Pictures above the best interests of the bride. It occurs to me that these companies may think twice about being partnered with CPI, a photography service, based in Sears and Wal-Mart.

Final Analysis:
I think this acquisition may find some audience; however, in the main, I predict it will be a dismal failure.

When it comes to the documentation of a wedding, there is no greater asset than the vision and artistry of a great wedding photographer.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

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