MAR
2007
Kodak Bucks Industry Trend as It Enters Printer Market†
Strategy Calls for Selling Ink Cartridges for Cheap to Change Consumer Habits
Advertising Age, March 7, 2007 — Did you know printer ink is three times more expensive than premium champagne? Kodak plans to help consumers come to that realization this month with an aggressive "Think ink" marketing strategy as it enters the highly competitive inkjet printer and cartridge market.
From Paul on March 8, 2007
This is awesome on two key fronts: the avid amature photographer and at-home printer. Most amateur photographers have clearly moved to digital and if they do a lot of prints, they are probably leveraging their home printer more. It’s also not a secret to most that ink cost more than the printer itself. This also makes great business sense. It helps better migrate Kodak away from there lucrative yet declining film business, and capitalizes on the home PC user. I don’t know the details of the printer industry, but I’m sure Kodak will have success going after the at-home recreational printer while larger players such as HP and Lexmark duke-it-out over business printing. I can see Kodak successfully carving-out a lucrative niche similar to how Apple has gained traction with the home-PC business, by focusing on life-sharing usage of technology.