TALL TALES CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW

In the early 1990s Kodak, the venerable photo products company, found itself in increasing difficulties. Despite a long history of pioneering products and dominating the market, the company was up against strong competition, and it also faced rapidly changing new technology. In trying to keep up, Kodak had ventured unsuccessfully outside its core market of imaging, which for Kodak included photography, digital imaging, color management systems, and image and document storage systems. In this digital age most consumers were unaware that Kodak had digital products; rather, Kodak was seen as the ‘‘yellow box’’ company. By 1993 Kodak posted a $1.5 million loss. The company still dominated in film sales, but it was perceived as old-fashioned and out of touch with younger consumers.

The company took several steps to revitalize its image. It created the tag line ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ for all of its advertising in order to show consumers the many possibilities available to them in taking and developing their photos. Kodak also turned to the New York advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather to create the ‘‘Tall Tales’’ corporate brand campaign for television, the first such effort for Kodak. The campaign had a twofold objective: to establish the Kodak brand as one offering a multitude of possibilities for pictures and to make the company more relevant to potential new customers in the generation X age group.

‘‘Tall Tales’’ was made up of two series of spots, each minimovies of 60 seconds, which ran during 1996 and 1997 on television and at movie theaters. The 1996 series was highly successful, winning a Gold Effie and a number of other awards. In 1997 Kodak followed with a second set of ‘‘Tall Tales.’’

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Kodak was founded in 1881 by George Eastman and became a household name and market leader with the introduction of the Brownie camera in 1900, color film in 1935 and, above all, the Kodak Instamatic camera in 1963. Eastman believed in reaching ordinary people, and his mission was to make photography, then a cumbersome procedure, something anybody could do and enjoy. ‘‘You push the button, we do the rest’’ was the Kodak slogan, and it was a tremendous success. It made Kodak far and away the market leader for a century, maintaining a 60-70 percent market share.

When CEO George Fisher took over the reins at Kodak at the end of 1993, his goal was to refocus Kodak on what it does best. He was in a sense returning to the vision of George Eastman but placing his efforts firmly in the context of digital technology—meaning the use of computers and other digital media to create, manipulate, send, and store images. Fisher began selling off the new ventures that had led the company off its path—which had included Sterling Drug, L&F Products (makers of Lysol and related products), and the Clinical Diagnostics division—and refocused the company on imaging.

Kodak’s marketing dilemma was that it had failed to position itself as a digital imaging innovator. Surveys showed that few consumers were even aware that Kodak had digital products. Indeed, as the magazine Sales and Marketing Management reported in early 1997, only very technology-savvy consumers were aware of the range of possibilities for enhancing photographs. During the 1990s, of the 60 million photos that were taken annually around the world, fewer than 2 percent were enlarged, manipulated, hung for display, or used commercially. Most went into a photo album or shoe box.

To resolve this dilemma Fisher created the new position of Chief Marketing Officer and in 1995 appointed Carl Gustin to fill it. Gustin left a position with the computer giant Apple to join Kodak and had also worked for a number of prestigious marketing agencies. Thus, he embodied exactly the talents Fisher sought to position Kodak for the digital age. The marketing department led by Gustin sat atop the business units and created centralized corporate branding and strategic planning. The new system was a dramatic change for Kodak. Whereas formerly each business division had carried out single-product advertising, Kodak changed to system advertising, which was planned through the corporate marketing division.

‘‘Our goal is to go beyond ‘You push the button’ and take customers toward a future where they ‘Take pictures. Further’,’’ Fisher told Sales and Marketing Management. ‘‘But we’ll do this in a way that makes it just as easy to take pictures further as it was to push the button. We want our imaging technology to be easy to use. Consumers want more and better pictures, not technology for its own sake.’’

TARGET MARKET

The ‘‘Tall Tales’’ campaign was directed at three separate and distinct groups. It focused first on parents of schoolage children. More specifically, this group, generally 25 to 55 years old, was college-educated, used a PC at home, often subscribed to an on-line service, and took pictures. The group was also thought to influence the technology decisions of mainstream Kodak consumers who were less comfortable with technology.

A second major focus group was the ‘‘wired generation,’’ adults 18 to 34 years old who were collegeeducated and PC and Internet users. It was thought that this group influenced other young consumers, as well as technology providers. Finally, the campaign focused on business managers and department heads, aged 35 to 64, who might have been part of the decision-making process for technology purchases in medium and large businesses. This group was likely to influence the technology considerations of fellow business executives, managers, and employees. All three groups were considered influential in the ‘‘Information Age.’’

COMPETITION

For much of its history Kodak had been without serious competition. However, the company met with new threats to its market position, during the 1970s and 1980s. Companies like Fuji and Konica successfully entered the film business and companies like Microsoft, Apple, Sony, and Hewlett Packard became leaders in the arena of new technologies. Because Kodak initially failed to position itself as a player in the digital age, it posed little threat to key digital competitors. Few consumers saw Kodak as a forward-thinking and innovative company; many did not even know of Kodak’s digital products and services. But Kodak retained strong brand recognition. In 1996, for example, branding expert Interbrand Schechter Inc. called it the world’s fourth strongest brand, surpassed only by McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and Disney.

Kodak saw Fuji as a particularly strong competitor in the film business. The two companies engaged in a protracted dispute over Kodak’s share in the Japanese film market during the 1990s, with Kodak asserting that it had been denied a fair chance to reach out to Japanese consumers. Although Kodak lost the battle legally, it had the backing of the U.S. government and was able to wring some concessions from the Japanese government.

MARKETING STRATEGY

Prior to the ‘‘Tall Tales’’ campaign, Kodak had used single-product advertising, parceling out its $300 million advertising budget among some 200 agencies worldwide. By 1996 Gustin had consolidated these 200 agencies to four: Ogilvy & Mather, J. Walter Thompson, Uniworld, and Saatchi & Saatchi, assigning each to focus on specific products worldwide. In a further consolidation, Ogilvy & Mather became the sole agency for the ‘‘Tall Tales’’ executions, which combined product and image advertising in Kodak’s first-ever corporate brand campaign. The campaign had very specific goals. It sought to position Kodak as a digital technology innovator among those most influential in the Information Age; to develop Kodak brand awareness among the young wired generation, a good number of whom did not own cameras; and to increase awareness that Kodak had digital imaging products for both home and business uses. The point of the campaign, which cost between $20 million and $40 million, was to convince the target groups that Kodak could best help them unleash the power of pictures. Kodak’s products were perceived by consumers as being both reliable and of high quality, and evoked images of family values. On the other hand, consumers also saw Kodak as an old-fashioned and stodgy company that mostly made little yellow boxes of film to capture ‘‘Kodak moments.’’ The campaign sought to draw on the long-held positive values to reposition Kodak as an innovative company more focused on the future than on treasured moments of the past. At the same time, Kodak was concerned that it not alienate its core group of older consumers. In other words, the campaign needed to promise the digital future without abandoning a long and worthy heritage. During the first phase of the ‘‘Tall Tales’’ campaign, buses at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta carried Kodak advertising, and a CD-ROM containing video clips and company materials was distributed to selected members of the press. The campaign included Internet marketing as well. The Kodak website was redesigned around the ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ theme for both 1996 and 1997.

The 1997 series consisted of three ‘‘60-second movies’’ that linked life events with Kodak products. Among the products and services the campaign showcased were the Funsaver single-use camera, Kodak premium processing, Kodak Gold film with color sharp technology, Gold Max film, and Image Magic cropping and enlarging features.

In the first television spot, ‘‘Tattoo,’’ a teenager desires a tattoo. Rather than prohibiting it outright, her mother proposes a compromise: she can photograph her friends’ tattoos, and they will study the results together. The girl uses a Kodak camera to take snapshots of her friends’ tattoos: Mickey’s bulldog, Rachel’s rose, Daphne’s lizard, and Uncle Leo’s faded and indecipherable ‘‘something.’’ That night she awakens screaming from a nightmare in which ‘‘Viva Macarena’’ is tattooed onto her forehead. To her mother’s visible relief, she announces the next day that she has decided to forego the entire project. In another spot, called ‘‘Saturday,’’ a bouncy teenager takes pictures of scenes from an ordinary suburban day. Her bright and colorful pictures of feet, socks, a dog, and a bowl of cereal are fun and offbeat, and unexpectedly a museum curator offers the young photographer $100,000 to exhibit them. She accepts eagerly and basks in the spotlight of instant fame. Finally, in ‘‘Stacy’’ a young man sweeps his girlfriend off her feet with a digitally enhanced Kodak photo, paving the way for the couple’s dreams of marriage and a long life together. Specific network, cable, and syndicated programs made up the television media plan. The airings were planned to reach viewers of lighter television shows and those with an interest in technology and innovation. ‘‘Tattoo’’ had its prime-time debut on the Drew Carey Show on March 12, 1997; ‘‘Saturday’’ made its first appearance also on March 12 on the Fox Network; and ‘‘Stacy’’ premiered on The Simpsons on March 9. ‘‘Saturday’’ was also shown during the Academy Awards on March 24. The broadcast schedule ran May through July 1996 and during March 1997.

OUTCOME

Kodak executives viewed the ‘‘Tall Tales’’ campaign of 1996 and 1997 a success, declaring that the campaign had effectively redefined Kodak as a serious player in the Information Age. A 16-country tracking study showed a 3 percent gain in brand equity (or confidence in the brand), which the company attributed to ‘‘re-energizing, rather than abandoning a focus on memories,’’ as CEO Fisher expressed it in a letter to the magazine Advertising Age. The campaign’s commercials of 1996, which won a Gold Effie, registered an ‘‘enjoyability’’ score higher than 97 percent of all spots ever tested by Millward Brown International (MBI). In the category ‘‘uniqueness,’’ ‘‘Tall Tales’’ received the best MBI score ever. Post campaign ad surveys by MBI Ad Trackers found that target consumers had changed their brand perceptions and that Kodak was seen as a more forward-thinking technological innovator after the campaign.

The wired generation also found more relevance in the Kodak brand. MBI found that the perception of the Kodak brand as ‘‘contemporary,’’ ‘‘cool,’’ and, above all, relevant rose by 25 percent in this group. Looking at the target audience as a whole, MBI found increased awareness that Kodak offered a variety of products for home and business users and that Kodak was more than just the ‘‘yellow box’’ company.

The campaign also had an immediate short-term effect on film sales for the second quarter of 1997. Still, despite the positive outlook, many financial experts felt it was too soon to judge the success of the ‘‘Tall Tales’’ campaign and questioned whether customers had truly accepted the company as a digital leader. ‘‘Kodak is in the midst of a long-term transition,’’ Tom Graves of Standard & Poors told Sales & Marketing Management. ‘‘But if Kodak offers innovative, affordable products, it can be accepted as a leader in digital technologies.’’

TAKE PICTURES. FURTHER. CAMPAIGN

In the mid-1990s the Eastman Kodak Company was not just the leading manufacturer of photographic film, paper, and chemicals; it was listed as one of the top companies in America. In both 1996 and 1997 the stock-market researcher EquiTrend selected Kodak as the number one brand for quality in the United States. At that time digital photography had not yet reached critical mass, and Kodak wanted to promote its new Kodak Advantix Photo System. Advantix was pitched as an ‘‘error-free, drop-in film’’ that allowed consumers to download film images onto a computer. At the same time camera makers such as Canon Inc. and Sony Corporation were developing digital cameras. Hoping to brand Kodak for a younger market and promote Advantix, Kodak released its ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ campaign. The television, radio, outdoor, and print campaign was funded by Kodak’s $100 million marketing budget and debuted in April 1996. Created by the ad agency Ogilvy & Mather of New York, the campaign was separated into different executions. ‘‘Anthem’’ consisted of five 60- and 30-second spots with the actor Luke Perry repeatedly answering the question ‘‘What can a picture be?’’ The second execution, titled ‘‘Tall Tales,’’ featured two 60-second commercials that each told a story through images. Campaign spots that were not connected to ‘‘Anthem’’ or ‘‘Tall Tales’’ aired later. The headline in an advertisement in People magazine asked, ‘‘Isn’t it time you had a new box to keep your pictures in?’’ A second magazine ad featured a photograph of workers mining vivid yellow sulfur on a steaming volcano. The text explained that Kodak Ektachrome Elite II amateur slide film could capture vibrant, pure colors under varying light conditions. The campaign officially ended in March 2001. ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ began just as digital photography was entering the mainstream culture. Advantix was not as popular as Kodak had expected. From 1999 to 2001 the company’s sales dropped from $14.1 billion to $13.2 billion. Because the campaign branded Kodak with film technologies instead of emerging digital technologies, the advertising community blamed it for outdating the Kodak brand while digital photography blossomed.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Kodak traced its roots to Eastman Dry Plate Company, founded in 1880 by George Eastman and Henry Strong. Dry plates represented a significant improvement over the chemically treated wet plates of glass that photographers had previously used to expose one picture at a time in their cameras, a procedure that required considerable expertise. In 1884 the company patented the first roll film, a long strip of paper coated with emulsion that was sensitive to light. In 1888 Eastman began marketing the Kodak, a portable box camera that cost $25 and was loaded with enough film for 100 pictures. The invention of this type of camera and film was important in the growth of the motion-picture industry, and it opened the field of photography to amateurs.

Emphasizing that its new cameras were simple enough for the average consumer to use, Eastman Company advertised with the slogan ‘‘You push the button,we do the rest.’’ At the turn of the century the firm increased its massmarket appeal by introducing a small Kodak camera called the Brownie at the inexpensive price of $1. By that time the enterprise was known as Eastman Kodak Company. Among its many noteworthy innovations were the introduction of color film in 1935 and the launch of the Kodak Instamatic camera in 1963. Ease of use remained a primary theme in the company’s marketing efforts. ‘‘Kodak Instamatic Cameras load instantly! Automatically shoot and take sharp, clear pictures time after time!’’ said an advertisement in Good Housekeeping. ‘‘No threading. No fumbling. No rewinding.’’ With a market share that averaged 60 to 70 percent, Kodak led the industry for decades. By 1997 it was one of the 25 largest companies in the United States. Its products included photography equipment and supplies, film, projectors, and copiers. Units such as Sterling Drug had been acquired over the years but were divested in the early 1990s as part of a general overhaul that focused the company on imaging products. During the late 1990s the firm kept up with changing technology by rapidly expanding and improving its digital equipment and services. These innovations allowed consumers to store their photographs on compact or floppy disks, view them and alter them on computer screens, and transmit them over the Internet. Kodak offered numerous state-of-the-art products and services, and it formed marketing alliances with companies such as America Online and Intel Corporation to encourage customers to use their photographs in new ways.

Over the years Kodak had cultivated a familyoriented image with advertising that revolved around the ‘‘Kodak moment,’’ a portrait of a consumer capturing a heartwarming experience on film. Many people were not aware, however, that Kodak offered more than film and cameras. In addition, research showed that consumers thought the company was old-fashioned. In 1996 Kodak released the ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ campaign to change its image and to publicize its many products along with the possibilities they offered to consumers.

TARGET MARKET

Kodak had cultivated a loyal following among consumers at least 35 years old, but it was not particularly appealing to most younger people. The new corporate-image campaign was intended to retain Kodak’s traditional customers while reaching teenagers and young adults, with a particular emphasis on consumers who were interested in mastering the most recent technologies. The first advertisements to use the ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ theme were aimed at the parents (ages 25 to 55) of school-age children, at young adults who used computers and had a college education (ages 18 to 34), and at business managers and department heads (ages 35 to 64). These ads promoted products such as ImageMagic service, which allowed consumers to crop and enlarge their photographs using Advantix, and the Fun Saver, a camera designed to be used only one time. Later advertisements also showcased innovative products. ‘‘Introducing the easiest way to get your pictures into your PC. The new Kodak Advantix film drive,’’ said a magazine ad that ran in 1998.

Some advertisements targeted the company’s core clientele of snap shooters 25 to 54 years old, primarily women, who took pictures to remember events such as birthday parties and family vacations. Kodak had become the industry leader by making it easy for people to take good photographs, and as the company introduced digital cameras and other innovations, its advertising assured consumers that photography would still be easy and more fun than ever. One advertisement in Travel & Leisure promoted Kodak Max film with the headline ‘‘I don’t care about f-stops. I don’t care about shutter speeds. I just want to take a picture.’’ The ad showed three badly exposed photographs labeled ‘‘Before Kodak Max’’ and three correctly exposed photographs labeled ‘‘After Kodak Max.’’ By showing new ways for people to enjoy their photographs, Kodak encouraged its customers to do more with their pictures than toss them in a drawer or file them away in a photo album. Of the 70 to 80 billion photographs that Americans snapped each year, only 2 percent were reprinted or enlarged. The ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ campaign urged consumers to use new technology such as E-mail to share photographs with their families and friends, to incorporate more photographs into documents created on their computers, and to improve photographs by altering their appearance. In addition to promoting Kodak’s digital products and services, the campaign was intended to revive interest in traditional film and cameras by explaining the many ways that average people could work with visual images.

COMPETITION

One of Kodak’s primary rivals was a company with headquarters in Japan, Fuji Photo Film U.S.A. Both Kodak and Fuji made film and photographic papers for professionals and amateurs, both firms had acquired large film processing companies nationwide to increase their share of the photo-finishing market, and both had begun manufacturing products such as digital cameras to compete in the emerging field of digital technology. Fuji had earned a reputation for low prices and high quality. In the spring of 1997 it suddenly slashed the price of its film, saying that one of its largest distributors had switched to Kodak and left Fuji with 2.5 million rolls of excess film to sell. During that summer Kodak’s film sometimes cost as much as 30 percent more than Fuji’s. According to Brandweek, Kodak’s share of the $3 billion U.S. film market slipped from 85 percent in 1988 to about 70 percent by the summer of 1997 and 65 percent by June 1998. Fuji had about 15 percent of the film market in 1998, up from 10 percent in 1996, and it also controlled about 15 percent of the photo-finishing market. Lacking the brand loyalty that Kodak had cultivated over the years, Fuji attempted to strengthen its corporate brand image in 1998 with an advertising campaign that used bright colors, surreal scenes, and the slogan ‘‘You can see the future from here.’’

Kodak also competed with companies that made cameras and related products. In 1998 Canon U.S.A. promoted its Advanced Photo System camera, the ELPH, with the tagline ‘‘So advanced . . . it’s simple.’’ The company’s ‘‘Wildlife as Canon Sees It’’ series of magazine ads featured large, beautiful photographs of wildlife above text that characterized each animal and mentioned Canon’s efforts to protect endangered species. Each ad included a small photograph and description of a Canon product. Another camera maker, Pentax Corporation, asked, ‘‘Aren’t your pictures worth a Pentax?’’ The campaign showed customers explaining that they had been able to take spectacular photographs thanks to certain features on their Pentax cameras. Minolta Corporation continued its ‘‘Only from the Mind of Minolta’’ campaign, while Olympus America Inc. used the slogan ‘‘Focus on Life.’’

MARKETING STRATEGY

Kodak had been using 200 advertising agencies worldwide but reduced that number to 4 during a general restructuring of its marketing program in 1994 and 1995. The company then increased its advertising expenditures for film, cameras, and its first image campaign. Kodak’s U.S. advertising budget was $65.4 million in 1994, $82 million in 1995, and about $100 million from 1996 through 1998. Each of the four agencies (Ogilvy & Mather, J. Walter Thompson, Uniworld, and Saatchi & Saatchi) promoted a specific group of products, with the separate advertising campaigns all using the new slogan ‘‘Take Pictures. Further.’’ Ogilvy & Mather was responsible for the overall corporate-image effort. Kodak’s trademark yellow served as the dominant color in the advertisements, helping to unify the brand message. In print ads the tagline was positioned beside or below the red and yellow Kodak logo, often near the address of the company’s home page on the Internet, which was also designed around the ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ theme. The tagline first appeared in advertisements designed by J. Walter Thompson to publicize Kodak’s new Advantix camera and accessories, which were launched in April 1996. Ogilvy & Mather handled the Advantix campaign in 1997 and 1998, still using the ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ slogan. Ads for Advantix products explained that the camera could take pictures in three sizes, that it featured drop-in film loading, and that the consumer received an index print when the film was developed. In 1997 Kodak spent about $60 million to advertise the Advantix brand in the United States. Ogilvy & Mather also created the ‘‘Tall Tales’’ execution, which had a budget of $20 to $40 million and ran during 1996 and 1997. These humorous scenarios, which aired on television and at movie theaters, showed people using products and services such as Kodak Gold and Max films and Kodak premium processing. One spot showed a young man accidentally photographing a flying saucer, then being pursued by government agents and rescued by space aliens. In another spot a consumer used Kodak’s Image Magic digital enhancement station to hide the dents in a photograph of a Gremlin automobile. Many executions in the ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ campaign emphasized Kodak’s digital products. A twopage ad in Reader’s Digest in 1998 featured a photograph of three boys playing soccer. The headline read, ‘‘Your son was a blur as he raced down the field. But every detail will be crystal clear when you print out your pictures.’’ The opposite page showed a digital camera with text explaining that the product allowed consumers to preview pictures, delete whatever they disliked, store the digital images on a picture card, use a computer to E-mail them to family and friends, and print them on high-quality paper. An ad in People magazine in 1998 also showed boys playing soccer next to the headline ‘‘This kick went clear across the country.’’ A coupon was included, inviting consumers to try Kodak PhotoNet (an online service for E-mailing photographs, ordering reprints, and purchasing gifts via the Internet) or Kodak Picture disk (a floppy disk that allowed consumers to view photographs on their computer monitors and incorporate pictures into documents). Kodak continued to use the slogan in new advertising campaigns during the late 1990s to promote three digital-imaging products that allowed amateurs to enlarge or crop their photographs, remove the red that flash photography sometimes caused in a subject’s eyes, add messages to the image, and place decorative borders around their pictures. Noting an increase in the number of teenage consumers, Kodak began slanting more of its U.S. advertising toward teenage girls. One spot, titled ‘‘Tattoo,’’ featured a girl who wanted a tattoo. Adhering to her mother’s advice to ‘‘shoot your friends’ tattoos, and we’ll look at the options,’’ she used an Advantix camera to photograph four different tattoos she liked. After having a nightmare in which the phrase ‘‘Viva Macarena’’ was tattooed across her forehead, the teen decided against getting a tattoo.

Unifying its global advertisements, the company launched its first worldwide image campaign in 1999. The effort built on the earlier campaign’s ‘‘Tall Tales’’ commercials and featured more fantastic stories told through photographs taken with Kodak products.

OUTCOME

During the six-year span of ‘‘Take Pictures. Further,’’ Kodak’s uncontested dominance over the photography industry began to wane. The enterprise lost business not to other film companies but to the skyrocketing popularity of digital photography. According to Kodak executives and advertising analysts, the problem with ‘‘Take Pictures. Further’’ was that it failed to promote Kodak’s own advancements in digital technology. In 1996 Kodak was one of the first companies to introduce a range of pocket-size digital cameras. Instead of marketing the digital cameras, however, Kodak promoted Advantix, which did not offer as many features as digital photography and cost more for consumers to develop. Belinda Parmar, an Ogilvy & Mather representative who worked on the campaign, told Marketing that Kodak’s greatest problem was that ‘‘[i]t may have promising digital technology, but it has failed to communicate this effectively and convince consumers that Kodak is a digital brand.’’ Sales for Kodak steadily declined during the campaign’s final three years. Kodak released several digital cameras throughout this period, but technology critics believed that digital Kodak cameras lacked the functionality and form of cameras made by Sony and Canon. In 2001 Kodak also made a late entry into online photo development with its launch of www.Ofoto.com, a website onto which consumers could upload their digital images and later receive the printed images in the mail. Kodak was offering digital products, but its campaign pushed the more expensive and less popular film products. ‘‘Kodak is well placed to become a success in home printing, particularly as the sector moves from high-end to mass market,’’ Parmar continued in Marketing. ‘‘But first,’’ she said, ‘‘it must focus its marketing communication on why, rather than how, people print out digital.’’

THE BEST PART OF PHOTOGRAPHY IS THE PRINTS CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
One of the most successful brands in the history of the United States, Eastman Kodak Company, whose founder had invented popular photography in the 1880s, was slipping as it entered the twenty-first century. Although it was a pioneer in the development of digital photography, Kodak had continued to focus on its highly profitable film products, conceding much of the digital-photography market to a host of competitors. Realizing it was falling behind, the company in 2003 decided to concentrate on its digital lines. To promote Kodak’s easy-to-use printing systems—which were available through either self-service kiosks or camera docks that connected to a personal computer—Kodak and its advertising agency, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, launched a campaign in 2004 titled ‘‘The Best Part of Photography Is the Prints.’’ The campaign’s print and television advertisements played off the question ‘‘Where are my pictures?’’—touching upon the frustrations many digital-camera users encountered when trying to get hard copies of the photos they had taken. The commercials targeted women, who, according to market research, took the vast majority of family pictures and maintained the family photo albums. The ‘‘Best Part of Photography Is the Prints’’ campaign won a 2005 EFFIE award and helped Kodak to increase the sales of its digital lines. But as the sale of traditional film products eroded further, the company continued to struggle financially. In the hopes of reestablishing its prominent position in the shifting photography marketplace, the company in 2005 replaced the campaign with a new marketing effort promoting Kodak’s cuttingedge digital cameras.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Kodak had essentially invented the amateur photography industry in the 1880s, when bank clerk George Eastman founded the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company and introduced the first Kodak brand camera. From the start the company proved to be a savvy marketer, as evidenced by its initial slogan, ‘‘You press the button—we do the rest.’’ While Kodak made money from the sale of cameras and especially from its film, over the decades the company wisely associated itself with the picture-taking process and lifestyle rather than with the merchandise—which included many innovative items, such as the $1 Brownie camera in 1900 (with film costing 15 cents a roll), the world’s first true color negative film in 1942, and the Instamatic camera in 1963. Kodak embraced television advertising early on, establishing fruitful relationships with television stars such as Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, variety show host Ed Sullivan, and sitcom actor Dick Van Dyke. The company later employed campaigns urging consumers to put ‘‘open me first’’ cards on Christmas presents containing Kodak cameras so that pictures could be taken when the rest of the presents were opened. Kodak’s marketing triumphs peaked in the early 1990s, when it tapped into the vernacular phrase ‘‘Kodak moment’’ to promote its cameras and film. But with the rise of digital photography people began to seriously question whether Kodak’s moment had come and gone.
Ironically, although Kodak was a pioneer in digital camera technology, garnering a number of key patents, the general public was mostly unaware of these accomplishments. The company, failing to anticipate how quickly digital technology would surpass traditional cameras and film, allowed a number of companies, some with no association with cameras at all, to stake significant claims in the growing new market.
In the mid-1990s Kodak dropped its longtime advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson Company, in favor of Ogilvy & Mather and attempted a corporate makeover to appeal to younger consumers. But Kodak still gave short shrift to digital photography by continuing to emphasize traditional photography and film, especially in China and in developing countries in Eastern Europe. Revenues began to erode, declining four years in a row by 2003, and the price of Kodak stock followed suit. The company found itself at a crossroads: it could either remain in the high-profit-margin film business or fully commit to digital technology, where margins were lower and, like those of all high-tech electronics, dropping. To complicate matters, Kodak lacked the reputation in digital it had enjoyed for so many years in traditional photography.
In September 2003 the company announced it was casting its lot with digital technology. Money that had gone to promoting the film business in developed markets would instead be directed toward selling such technologies as ink-jet printers and high-end digital printing. A large number of digital-camera users were not making prints of their photographs, but Kodak believed that eventually they would see the value of having hard copies. Sensing an opportunity, the company decided to emphasize its kiosk printers and home-printing camera docks, which became the focal point of the campaign, titled ‘‘The Best Part of Photography Is the Prints.’’ In a larger sense, however, Kodak wanted to position itself as a player in the entire digital process, from capturing the image to outputting it.

TARGET MARKET
While in general Kodak’s ‘‘Best Part of Photography Is the Prints’’ campaign was aimed at all digital-camera users, the company had a more specific target in mind: wives and mothers. Kodak research had revealed that 70 to 80 percent of family pictures were taken by women. Moreover women were generally the keepers of family memories and maintained the photo albums. It was with women in mind that the company had earlier introduced its EasyShare system, which included a camera, software, and an easy-to-use dock for transferring pictures to a computer. Later it offered an EasyShare printer dock, which allowed photos to be printed straight from a camera, without using a computer. The company said that women generally placed the printer dock in the kitchen and often took it with them as a party printer. But as Carl E. Gustin, Jr., Kodak’s chief marketing officer, explained to Claudia H. Deutsch of the New York Times, the company also realized that the target customer would want a printing option that did not involve owning a home ink-jet printer. He stated, ‘‘So if digital photography and printing is going to be a truly mass phenomenon, then self-service retail has to be a big part of it.’’ Thus promoting Kodak’s kiosks at retail stores was also a priority for the company and the new marketing campaign.
According to Beth Snyder Bulik, writing for Advertising Age, the target audience was ‘‘women, ranging from teens to grandmothers.’’ Because consumers in the younger demographic tended to E-mail pictures to one another and to view Kodak as a stodgy brand, the company had decided not to pursue this group aggressively. Nevertheless Kodak also hoped to begin connecting with young people by promoting its cutting-edge technology. For example, Kodak possessed high-definition OLED (organic lightemitting diode) display technology, which allowed for thinner cameras and mobile phones with picture-taking capabilities. The company was optimistic that when techsavvy members of the younger generation began to realize the implications of this and other Kodak innovations, they would begin to change their view of the brand.

COMPETITION
Kodak faced competition in the digital arena on a number of fronts. Its digital cameras competed against established camera companies, such as Canon, Fuji, Minolta, and Olympus, but also against newcomers, such as Hewlett-Packard, LG Electronics, Nokia, Samsung, and Sony. All of the latter group had arrived in the photography market via their successes in digital technology and had the deep pockets to support aggressive marketing campaigns. On the home-printing front Kodak’s main competitor was market leader Hewlett-Packard (although Kodak led in the sale of the ink-jet paper on which digital photos were printed).
Digital pictures that were saved on memory cards and CDs could also be dropped off like film rolls at a local photo shop or drugstore counter for processing, but increasingly consumers were turning to do-it-yourself digital-photo kiosks where pictures could be selected, edited, and printed on the spot. It was in this category that Kodak was able to leverage its brand to establish itself as a major player in the digital-photography industry. It forged alliances with drugstore chains, such as CVS in the United States and Boots in the United Kingdom, and with superstores, such as Wal-Mart and Target. Nevertheless kiosks remained a competitive sector, the direct competition coming from the likes of Polaroid, Olympus, PMI/KIS, IBM, Mitsubishi, Sony, and a host of smaller companies.

MARKETING STRATEGY
Kodak continued to follow its century-long strategy of playing up the lifestyle of taking pictures rather than the cameras or film themselves. The difference was that digital products were made the priority, and Kodak allocated the necessary resources to promote them. According to TNS Media Intelligence, out of the $109 million Kodak spent in 2004 on measured media (that is, TV, radio, and print), $71 million was devoted to digital cameras, home-printing solutions, and selfservice kiosks. The thrust of the ‘‘Best Part of Photography Is the Prints’’ campaign, composed of both television and print elements, was on ease of use, in particular in printing digital photos. This was a market, unlike digital cameras, where Kodak could truly use the strength of its brand to its advantage. In a three-month companion campaign developed by HSR Business to Business, Cincinnati, the Kodak Professional unit promoted its line of digital-photo printers through print ads aimed at professional photographers.
Nicola Bell, worldwide executive group director at Ogilvy & Mather, told Claudia H. Deutsch of the New York Times, ‘‘Our research shows that even people who love their digital cameras are still frustrated about how to get prints.’’ The strategy of the new television spots was relatively straightforward. ‘‘We have to position the kiosks as friendly little machines that guarantee good, long-lived pictures,’’ Bell explained.
Writing for Advertising Age, Beth Snyder Bulik maintained that the strategy of the new campaign could be encapsulated in the question asked in each ad: ‘‘Where are my pictures?’’ She interviewed Pierre Schaeffer, Kodak’s vice president and director of business strategy and marketing services, who said that many people could relate to the catchphrase, adding, ‘‘There has been a brainwashing in digital cameras that suggests you need to be a computer expert. We try to break that image . . .’ You press a button, we do the rest. We’re the experts in photography, you don’t have to be.’ ’’ The ‘‘Best Part of Photography Is the Prints’’ campaign broke in late May 2004. In the new TV spots Kodak customers talked about how they loved digital photography but lamented the fact that they never actually got their photos printed. One commercial featured the EasyShare digital camera and printer dock. Another promoted the picture maker kiosk. In the International Herald Tribune, Deutsch described the commercials as featuring ‘‘a panoply of people—young and old, male and female, black and white and Asian—professing love for their digital cameras. Then it pans to one young man crying plaintively, ‘Where are my pictures?’ The answer, of course, is readily at hand—if he would only go to his local self-service kiosk and make them.’’ Other TV spots focused on consumers using the EasyShare printer dock at home.
The campaign’s print ads also divided their focus between the self-service kiosks and the easy-to-use home printer dock. Other aspects of the campaign included monthly educational E-mail newsletters, a holiday mailing, and booths at NASCAR races.

OUTCOME
Kodak’s Schaeffer told Advertising Age that the different elements of the company’s ‘‘Best Part of Photography Is the Prints’’ campaign ‘‘all paid off big-time.’’ Kodak gained U.S. market share on Sony, improving from 15.3 to 18.3 percent in the first half of 2004. On the kiosk side of the business, Kodak was enjoying tremendous growth, due in large measure to advertising and to the distribution of Kodak kiosks throughout the marketplace. Not to be discounted, however, was the quality of the product, which ranked at or near the top of the three different categories defined by the Digital Imaging Marketing Association: stand-alone units, kiosks linked to remote printing equipment, and combination kiosks that could either print locally or send files to a remote digital-photo minilab for development. Also of great importance was that an increasing number of people were turning to kiosks for their prints. According to market research about 39 percent of digital-camera users tried kiosks in 2004 compared with 28 percent in 2003. The campaign also garnered recognition for Ogilvy & Mather, which won a bronze in the Consumer Electronics category at the 2005 EFFIE Awards, given out annually by the New York American Marketing Association in recognition of the year’s most effective advertising campaigns. Kodak made strides in positioning itself in the digital marketplace in 2004, and its digital sales were growing at a strong clip, but the traditional film business was slipping even faster than expected, putting additional pressure on Kodak’s marketers to promote the digital lines to make up for shrinking film sales. In the first quarter of 2005 Kodak generated sales of $2.83 billion, down from the $2.92 billion it had reported for the same period a year earlier. In the second quarter the company suffered a net loss of $143 million. Ogilvy & Mather’s next major market effort, launched in 2005, pursued the theme ‘‘Keep it forever. Keep it Kodak,’’ another attempt to retain Kodak’s connection to the past while portraying the company as an innovator. In addition Kodak was undergoing a large makeover that ranged from revamping product design and styling to updating operating systems.

ADVANTIX CAMPAIGN

OVERVIEW
Eastman Kodak Company ran one of the largest advertising campaigns in its history to publicize the Advanced Photo System (APS), a new type of camera, film, and related products developed jointly by Kodak and a number of competitors. Kodak’s APS cameras were designed primarily to make photography easier for the snapshooter, the consumer who took pictures to remember birthdays and other such occasions.
Because the public was still confused about APS after an initial marketing campaign in 1996, the company hired ad agency Ogilvy & Mather of New York to design new advertising for 1997 to explain the advantages of APS products. These commercials ran until they were replaced by the next phase of APS promotions, which began in the summer of 1998. Kodak spent far more than its competitors to promote APS, which helped consumers equate APS with Advantix, the Kodak brand of APS products. The 1997 ‘‘Advantix’’ television campaign ran in two stages. The first was a spot that asked, ‘‘Can your camera do this?’’ and then explained three of an Advantix camera’s innovative features; drop-in film loading, choice of three picture sizes, and an index print. The second stage consisted of three humorous scenarios, one for each special feature of the Advantix system, which showed photographers experiencing problems they could have avoided if they had used APS. One spot, for example, showed an elderly woman who had fulfilled her lifelong dream of having her picture taken in front of the Eiffel Tower. When she had the pictures developed, she was horrified to see that the photographer had cropped off most of her head so that the tower would fit into the picture. The ad concluded, ‘‘She should’ve had a Kodak Advantix camera with three picture sizes for better pictures.’’
The campaign also included print advertisements that illustrated the three distinctive features of APS products. Each ad displayed color photographs against a Kodak yellow background and was accompanied by a brief explanation of one of the features and of Kodak’s general corporate signature, ‘‘Take Pictures. Further.’’

HISTORICAL CONTEXT
In helping to develop the Advanced Photo System to make photography easier for the average consumer, Kodak was staying true to its roots. The company had been founded in 1888 on the slogan ‘‘You push the button, we do the rest.’’ Kodak had a history of introducing new products, including photographic equipment and supplies, projectors, and copiers. In 1997 Kodak was a multinational corporation with nearly 100,000 employees, one of the 25 largest companies in the United States. The ‘‘Tall Tales’’ commercials ran in the same year as the first ads to promote the new Advantix camera. The initial campaign, launched in February 1996, was designed by J. Walter Thompson, which had been Kodak’s primary ad agency for more than 60 years. The commercials opened with the customary Kodak moment, as when a bearded hippie admired a spectacular mountain vista and commented, ‘‘Some people see mountains. I see personalities.’’ After the point had been made that every photographer captured pictures from a unique point of view, the voice-over said, ‘‘Now Kodak introduces a new technology that will let you take those pictures further than you’ve ever imagined.’’ The commercial concluded by summarizing the three innovative features of APS cameras and film.
In 1997, when J. Walter Thompson was replaced by Ogilvy & Mather, the ‘‘Advantix’’ campaign began. Kodak had invested a great deal of money in researching and developing APS, and it allocated $100 million to promote Advantix products worldwide.

TARGET MARKET
Kodak believed that its core customers would take more pictures of a broader range of subjects if they were provided with cameras, film, and other merchandise that would make photography easier. The company wanted to attract new customers but was primarily interested in appealing to those who were already familiar with its products. A large percentage of Kodak’s customers were mothers who took pictures during birthday parties, holiday celebrations, vacations, and other family occasions. Kodak’s previous advertising had focused on this type of situation, but as its customers became more adept at photography, the company’s commercials featured a wider variety of possibilities.
Although many customers had learned how to use the more complex 35-mm equipment that had been their best option before the advent of the Advanced Photo System, they were not particularly interested in creating professional-looking photographs. Instead, they wanted convenient equipment that was easy to use and would produce pictures of good quality. It was thought that they would appreciate the compact size of the Advantix cameras, the ‘‘foolproof’’ drop-in loading that would help them avoid frustrating mechanical problems, and the choice of three picture sizes for each shot. In addition, they would welcome the index print, which, like a proof sheet, showed miniature replicas of each shot on the roll of film. The index print would allow users to see what they were getting when they ordered reprints without having to deal with negatives. The marketing campaign pointed out each of these advantages in a simple way that could be grasped by watching a 30-second television commercial or by reading a few sentences in a print ad.

COMPETITION
Each of the five companies—Kodak, Canon U.S.A., Minolta, Nikon, and Fuji Photo Film U.S.A.—that cooperated in developing the Advanced Photo System had its own brand of APS products, and they were designed to meet the needs of somewhat different target markets. In general, all provided the three basic APS features, and Fuji also introduced a line of APS film. Kodak’s Advantix camera tended to be slightly less expensive than some of the other APS brands and was generally easier for snapshooters to use. Consumers did not have the option of changing lenses with the Advantix camera, but it did have a built-in zoom lens. In contrast, one of Canon’s four APS cameras, the EOS IX, was designed to accept more than 50 lenses and hundreds of accessories. The company also introduced the credit card-size ELPH, the world’s smallest shutter camera with a 2x zoom lens. The ELPH had several sophisticated features, including an active autofocusing mode that used an infrared emitter and sensor and a passive mode that could discern variations in contrast. Another model, the Canon ELPH 490Z, featured a 4x zoom lens. In television commercials a woman with an elfin air about her inquired, ‘‘Have you seen the ELPH?’’ as a series of ultracompact cameras floated past. The ads ended with the tag line ‘‘It’s so advanced . . . it’s simple.’’ Another Canon slogan said, ‘‘ELPH: the big name in the Advanced Photo System.’’
During 1997 Fuji offered rebates of up to $15 to develop and print a roll of its Fujicolor SmartFilm when customers purchased certain Fujifilm Endeavor APS cameras. To publicize the rebates, the company ran a full-page ad in USA Today and other ads in 15 key markets. The campaign was launched in September 1997 to coincide with holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. In addition to promotional efforts for its APS films, Fuji expanded its network of photographic laboratories in Europe and the United States and offered digital imaging services. Fuji’s net sales increased 12 percent in 1997.
Minolta and Nikon also advertised their cameras and accessories, but Kodak spent far more to publicize APS than did all the other companies combined. In addition to its ‘‘Advantix’’ campaigns, Kodak participated in co-op ads with the other companies to educate the public about APS.
Kodak’s $100 million budget to advertise Advantix products amounted to about 85 percent of the total all five companies spent to publicize APS products in 1997. Fuji initially allocated about $13 million, twice its previous ad budget, to promote its SmartFilm brand. Minolta allocated $10 million, about 150 percent of its previous ad budget, to promote its Vectis brand of APS products. Kodak’s total spending on advertising in 1994, just before APS was introduced, was $65.4 million. In 1997 the company budgeted about $60 million for advertising Advantix in the United States alone.

MARKETING STRATEGY
At the end of the 1996 campaign introducing the Advanced Photo System equipment and film, consumers still seem confused. As a result, Ogilvy & Mather introduced the ‘‘Can Your Camera Do This?’’ spot. The 1997 round of ads was intended primarily to promote the Advantix brand and only secondarily APS. The challenge was to communicate the basics of a new, complex technology in print ads and television commercials. In April 1997 Kodak began airing television ads that asked, ‘‘Can your camera do this?’’ They stressed the three features of Advantix cameras—drop-in film loading, the choice of three picture sizes, and an index print. This first phase of the campaign was designed to explain the functional benefits of APS.
The next series of television ads were humorous, depicting common problems that photographers could eliminate by using Advantix products. The print ads gave more details. For example, one television spot showed a couple who were having a reprint made so that they could enter the photo in a cute-baby contest but who chose the wrong negative and inadvertently submitted a picture of a chubby grown-up. The commercial ended with the line ‘‘They should’ve had the Kodak Advantix system with an index print so you can see what you’re ordering.’’ The corresponding print ad showed an example of an index print and included explanatory text:
‘‘Choosing your favorite smile is a lot easier when you can actually see the smile. When Kodak Advantix film is processed, your pictures come back with the negatives in their original film cassette and with an index print that gives you a miniature version of every shot. Ordering reprints is easy, and you can get them in any of the three sizes. So no more squinting at negatives, trying to tell a grimace from a grin.’’
The broadcast ads were aired on network, cable, and syndicated television programs, particularly during the Academy Awards and the coverage of the Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. In addition to the United States, they ran in the United Kingdom and in other countries. In non-U.S. markets the ‘‘Can your camera do this?’’ spots were shown more often than the humorous ads. The print ads ran primarily in consumer magazines in the United States. Some appeared in publications that focused on new parents and travel so as to reach readers who were likely to be taking more than the average number of photographs. The ads also appeared in generalinterest magazines and in various other publications. The ads highlighting the three features of the Advantix camera ran into the summer of 1998, when the next stage of the promotion began. Kodak’s promotion of Advantix products and APS had been designed to encompass several years, allowing the company to expand gradually on the basic message.

OUTCOME
Kodak and Ogilvy & Mather analyzed the public’s reaction to the campaign and found that it scored high on every positive indicator. When asked to tell what they recalled about the advertisements, people were able to repeat the words almost exactly. One of the spots was included on Adweek ’s list of the best ads of 1997. During 1997 Kodak saw strong growth for its other merchandise as well, in part because of the promotion of such products as Max film and Goldfilm.