Comparison with Manfrotto
Manfrotto is an Italian brand of camera accessories, including tripods, monopods, bags…
The founder of the brand was Lino Manfrotto, an Italian photojournalist. He started by designing and selling light stands, booms, and telescopic rods under a brand named after him “Manfrotto” at the end of the 60s. In 1972 Lino Manfrotto met Gilberto Battocchio, a technician working for a mechanical firm in Italy. With his collaboration, the company introduced its first tripod in 1974.
So both Manfrotto and Frii Designs started the same way, as a very small team with two people joining their knowledge to create something.
Now Manfrotto is the opposite of Frii Designs in many ways. It is a very huge corporation, and probably the most famous brand producing accessories for cameras. Manfrotto have around 1000 employees so it’s definitely not a family business anymore, especially since it’s not owned by the family anymore but by another corporation.
Manfrotto chose their motto “Manfrotto Imagine More” because of the historical mission they had of fuelling the enthusiasm of amateur photographers and supporting the surge of independent content creators. This is also the goal of Trii Designs, like I mentioned in the previous parts, they want to make life easier for photographers and motivate them to be creative and to use their cameras at their best.
Manfrotto have deals with a lot of very big companies such as Apple or Amazon. You can buy their products literally everywhere, in shops or online, while Frii Designs are doing all the distribution by themselves and the only way to buy their product is on their website. They are not available on Amazon etc yet.
Manfrotto is spending a lot of money on ads in magazines, sponsorship of photography events and marketing. In comparison Frii Designs didn’t spend a single dollar on their launch video because all they did was make it go viral. Because it’s a young startup they focus more on new marketing techniques such as viral videos on social medias, which is way less expensive and helps reach even more people.