Maybe the approach though should be different. If Kodak had a series of ads showing some of the benefits of film. Maybe an ad showing how it can preserve highlights. Another showing high resolution without spends thousands (10's of 1000's) on digital gear. Maybe another showing convenience....drop the film off, the lab color corrects and everything for you.Originally Posted by Ben Syverson
They don't need to do ANY of that. They just need to advertise PERIOD. Just take a film ad from the '90s, plop in Ektar, and run it. They should simply 'pretend' (because Kodak itself apparently doesn't believe) that film is a perfectly relevant photographic product like Samsung memory cards, or whatever other ads run in photography magazines nowadays. That's it. Just advertise the film.If Kodak had a series of ads showing some of the benefits of film. Maybe an ad showing how it can preserve highlights. Another showing high resolution without spends thousands (10's of 1000's) on digital gear. Maybe another showing convenience....drop the film off, the lab color corrects and everything for you.
You could apply that argument to basically all advertising, ever. 99.9% of people that see a Rolex advertisement, will never buy a Rolex. That's not the purpose of the advertisement. To use a buzzword, it's about mindshare.It's not like a $5000 full page ad in American Photographer is going to convince your DSLR-shooting brother in law to pick up a film camera.
An advertisement for film is not about someone seeing your ad and running out and abandoning digital for film. It's about somebody seeing an ad for Kodak film and thinking, perhaps completely subconsciously, "film is still available, Kodak still sells it. People still use it. Serious photographers use it, because it is advertised in a publication aimed at serious photographers. Film is a relevant photographic product, because there is an ad for film in this magazine. I don't shoot film, but this ad is evidence that some people do. Should I?".
How many people have asked you "can you still get film?"? The difference between your product existing and it existing in the minds of consumers is a linked relationship. If you don't advertise, your product doesn't exist in the mind of consumers, and pretty soon it will not exist at all.
The complete lack of advertising for film products makes it seem like the film manufacturers don't even want to sell it. Even on places like APUG, I have never seen an advertisement for Kodak film.
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.
--A=B by Petkovšek et. al.
In some ways, they are recycling ads. There have been Ektar 100 and Portra ads in various magazines I've seen over the last year+. The funny thing is, even though they are there, most people here asking for ads obviously don't even notice them!
My statistics:
Magazines read last month: 0
Comic books read last month: a bunch
Ads heard on the radio: life insurance, cars, house and gardening, ambulance chasers, music stores, misc. garbage
Ads seen on billboards: spas, casinos, anti-abortion, anti-gun, insurance, gasoline, misc. business
Outside of special interest magazines, where does Kodak advertise at all? I don't recall even a web advertisement, and based on the garbage I've seen, those have got to be dirt cheap. Yabuka and Pulse360 have some true low-budget operations using them.
There are plenty of other companies which are far more agressive than Kodak about marketing. There was that thread about coats, and one of the garment manufacturers paid for web-sensitive advertising. Visit their site, and ads for their product will appear wherever else you go. Same with Jeep. Kodak and Fuji don't do that, but it must be cheap if a garment maker can do it.
I agree with Eddie......
It's plain to see that Kodak has given up. What was once a leader is now a fading shadow.
What most are suggesting is roll over and let China control us. It's working and with the same crop of lame politicians it's not getting any better. We in the US are on the back of the bell curve, far down.
Frank has a point, while we are getting blamed for everything we might as well get something for it.
No M1A1 was put out of service in the Iraq war. The world says do something in North Africa and when we do they will immediately start to condem us. Then we will settle it with lifetime foreign aid.
Withdraw all foreign aid and spend the money on education and innovation. Don't give away technology for nothing.
The "convenience" of film? Compared to what, wet plates? : - )
You can't sell something through advertising that nobody wants to buy. It would be like an advertising campaign for 8 track tapes or typewriters. Digital is just a better product for 99% of the people who use a camera and no ad campaign is going to convince them it isn't when it in fact is. It's not like great highlights or high resolution are important when making snapshots of a kid's birthday party.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
On advertising:
Page 53 of the current Photo District News carries a full-page ad for the new Portra 400. I'm just sayin'
Bill Poole
"Speak softly, but carry a big camera."
Do you not think Kodak sending this film out to bloggers counts as advertising? I've also received Portra direct from Kodak on two separate occasions in the last couple years - one was when they release -2 in about 2006-2007, the other was about a year ago through a promotion they were doing on flickr.
I agree Kodak could step up marketing, but film is not going to be sold with television commercials and magazine ads. And I think they are marketing a little bit in ways that don't seem like it at first.
Tim, how did you sign up for free film?
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