Kodak Shoots For YouTube Consumer Connection

MediaPost Publications, November 3, 2009 — Many consumers may still think of Kodak as mainly an enabler of still images. But the company is becoming deeply involved in the Web's most popular site for moving pictures: YouTube.

Kodak has launched a branded YouTube channel, ForMom, featuring user-generated testimonials from real moms on topics ranging from parenting and cooking to health, beauty and exercise.

It’s Brand New, but Make It Sound Familiar

New York Times, October 5, 2009 — Humans instinctively sort and classify things. It’s how we make sense of a complex world.

So when companies develop innovative products and services that don’t obviously fit into established categories, managers need to help people understand what comparison to make.

Should You Launch a Fighter Brand?†

Customers are suddenly hyperconscious of value, and new low-price competitors are nipping at your heels.

Harvard Business Review, October 1, 2009 — Managers contemplating a new product launch during the prosperous early years of the twenty-first century typically looked only in one direction: up. Thanks to consumers’ rising incomes and apparently insatiable desire for superior quality, the era began with a focus on “premiumization,” “trading up,” and “luxury for the masses.”

But times change. Economic strains are now causing consumers to trade down, and many midtier and premium brands are losing share to low-price rivals. Their managers face a classic strategic conundrum: Should they tackle the threat head-on by reducing prices, knowing that will destroy profits in the short term and brand equity in the long term? Or should they hold the line, hope for better times to return, and in... continue reading

At BlogHer Confab, Marketers Show Moms Some Love†

Pepsi, P&G, Walmart, Kodak, Others Look to Learn Lessons of Social Media While Feting Moms With Luncheons, Gift Bags

Advertising Age, July 27, 2009 — If you were wondering where the media budgets have gone, you might have tried looking around Chicago late last Thursday through Saturday, or maybe even check out one of the city's pawn shops this week.

At the BlogHer '09 conference in Chicago marketers were lining up to woo around 1,500 mommy bloggers with swag, celebrity appearances, shopping sprees and lavish entertainment of the sort that seems part of a bygone era to most of the marketing world.

Kodak Develops as Modern Brand With Digital Shift†

CMO Hayzlett Takes on Active Social-Media Approach to Marketing

Advertising Age, April 27, 2009 — Kodak CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett has more than 2,500 friends on Facebook and more than 3,200 followers on Twitter. He recently presided over the first-annual Streamy Awards for web TV, sponsored by Kodak, and both blogs and tweets about Kodak's coming involvement in the May 10 episode of "Celebrity Apprentice."

A new style of CMO has arrived.

At Kodak, Some Old Things Are New Again

Eastman Kodak, which once considered itself the Bell Labs of chemistry, has embraced the digital world and the researchers who understand it

New York Times, May 2, 2008 — Steven J. Sasson, an electrical engineer who invented the first digital camera at Eastman Kodak in the 1970s, remembers well management’s dismay at his featMy prototype was big as a toaster, but the technical people loved it,” Mr. Sasson said. “But it was filmless photography, so management’s reaction was, ‘that’s cute — but don’t tell anyone about it.’ ”

Since then, of course, Kodak, which once considered itself the Bell Labs of chemistry, has embraced the digital world and the researchers who understand it.

The Power of Suggestion

Forget focus groups. These days, big brands are all involving customers in all stages of the marketing process

Deliver Magazine, December 1, 2007 — Whenever Jeff Hayzlett, chief business development officer and vice president at Eastman Kodak Company, goes into retail printer outlets, he’s struck by an absurdity that has become the norm in his industry: In many stores, rows of inkjet printers sit out on open shelves for all to see and touch — while the small ink cartridges that are used to fuel them are secured behind locked cabinets.

As obvious and wrongheaded a message as this sends — that the costly cartridges are more valued than the printers themselves — Hayzlett says consumers have been saying as much for years. Incredibly, he says, many in the industry still aren’t paying attention.

“Our customers were very clear in telling us they were fed up with the cost of inkjet... continue reading

There's Nothing New in Desperate Marketing

Prophet, April 23, 2007 — Two Brands: Burger King and Ford followed different paths in their quests to grow-and stand as case studies of why the best marketing comes from innovation, not desperation.

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.

The Perils And Payoff Of Changing A Brand

CBS News, February 18, 2007 — It has to be the most overused phrase in marketing: "New and improved!" But in business new isn't just a selling point, but it's a mantra. Companies walk a tightrope to balance the need to be the newest, the freshest; the best while staying stay true to the product that put them on the map. For example, the packaging for a Cheerios box has changed, but what's inside box is pretty much the same as it was back in 1941, when General Mills launched "Cheery Oats."