First Kodak Print Ad since more than a decade

ludwighagelstein · Sep 20, 2019

!Back in the golden days of film, Kodak spent a huge amount of money advertising its products.

But with the onset of digital, the amount of ads for Kodak’s film range has dwindled, apart from online.

But that might be about to change.

The latest international edition of PhotoKlassik International magazine, a German magazine aimed at film photography enthusiasts, sports a back-page ad that takes you right back to the days when film was king, queen and every extended member of the royal family.

The ad features a graphic showing a family driving past one of the old “drive through” Kodak-branded kiosks common in US tourist spots in the 1960s and 60s. It says: “Add a special ingredient to your days out… Shoot film and relive your memories for generations!”

“Our contact with Kodak started at the PhotoKina 2018 when we launched the Inaugural issue,” editor Marwan Mozayen told Kosmo Foto. “And the business and sales departments were quite interested. They were very open and we could start with a lot of interviews with the people responsible for the Ektachrome manufacturing.

“And then suddenly they decided to advertise and we started to discuss this with them. What I know was that this specific ad was created during the time we discussed the ad.”

Could this be the start of a new raft of Kodak adverts urging photographers to trade pixels for Portra, Tri-X and Ektar? Given the very promising news about increasing film sales from the likes of Kodak and Ilford Photo recently, that might not be a bad idea."

https://kosmofoto.com/2019/09/kodak...KCzT5XA9ww_r4ajdiUpV2ZVay6QmvwPjwiOyk_DZor_AM

AgX · Sep 20, 2019

In the next issue finally a Kodak advertising disc again??

guangong · Sep 20, 2019

The message is right on, but the venue selected is talking to the already committed. Ad should be placed in a mass media publication for more bang for the buck.

AgX · Sep 20, 2019

But at least they do some printed marketing effort at this group. A few years ago Kodak did not do any marketing for still film at all. All their efforts were done at the cine field alone.

wyofilm · Sep 20, 2019

guangong said:
The message is right on, but the venue selected is talking to the already committed. Ad should be placed in a mass media publication for more bang for the buck.

I agree with you, but I am stumped as to how they would proceed when much of the public thinks that film no longer exists. What is their message?

dutchsteammachine · Sep 20, 2019

wyofilm said:
I agree with you, but I am stumped as to how they would proceed when much of the public thinks that film no longer exists. What is their message?

Same as on their facebook,

"It's nice to see you again" some modern photos with neg perforations and photos of film rolls. Link to kodak website?

MattKing · Sep 20, 2019

I can't quite read the small print on the ad.
Do I assume correctly that this is a Kodak Alaris ad?

AgX · Sep 20, 2019

MattKing said:
I can't quite read the small print on the ad.
Do I assume correctly that this is a Kodak Alaris ad?

It is Kodak Alaris.
Just have a look at the logo. Kodak and Kodak Alaris have different logos.

Nodda Duma · Sep 20, 2019

wyofilm said:
I agree with you, but I am stumped as to how they would proceed when much of the public thinks that film no longer exists. What is their message?

That they are beginning to understand today’s customer.

wyofilm · Sep 20, 2019

I hope Kodak Alaris is paying attention to youtube. That is where new film photographers are initiated. Some channels are better than others, but new film shooters have a lot to learn about buying a used film camera, how to process, scanning, perhaps printing, and so forth. Kodak Alaris might do well to sponsor some of the best channels out there.

cmacd123 · Sep 20, 2019

Eastman Kodak has been fairly constant at adverting in "American Cinematographer". Mainly pushing that film capture is better looking than Digital Capture and does not have a price premium when all the costs of running a Digital Village are considered.

wyofilm · Sep 20, 2019

What is a Digital Village for filmmaking and what makes it expensive?

Pieter12 · Sep 20, 2019

guangong said:
The message is right on, but the venue selected is talking to the already committed. Ad should be placed in a mass media publication for more bang for the buck.

I don't think they are trying to win over consumers to film. Rather, Kodak is trying to get a better share of the film market.

pentaxuser · Sep 20, 2019

Pieter12 said:
I don't think they are trying to win over consumers to film. Rather, Kodak is trying to get a better share of the film market.

Well the message I get from the advert is that KA is at least as much trying to initiate greater use of film as much as it is trying to persuade existing film users to switch to Kodak.

Simply trying to win over existing Fuji or Ilford customers( Kodak's only serious volume rivals) as a sole objective seems to make less sense to me

pentaxuser

Pieter12 · Sep 20, 2019

pentaxuser said:
Well the message I get from the advert is that KA is at least as much trying to initiate greater use of film as much as it is trying to persuade existing film users to switch to Kodak.

Simply trying to win over existing Fuji or Ilford customers( Kodak's only serious volume rivals) as a sole objective seems to make less sense to me

pentaxuser

Look at the medium: an analog photo magazine. Plus, the ad is signed Kodak Professional--hardly a division going after the consumer market.

wyofilm · Sep 20, 2019

pentaxuser said:
Simply trying to win over existing Fuji or Ilford customers( Kodak's only serious volume rivals) as a sole objective seems to make less sense to me

They need to participate in a growing market. Someone out there TODAY is using a film camera for the first time. The often maligned, but profitable Lomography, recognizes this. I hope KA recognizes this. Happily for KA, Lomography sells not only its rebranded film, but also Kodak film.

Ilford at least has a series of youtube videos aimed at first time film users. Lomography gets youtube channels to say this episode is sponsored by Lomography by given the channel as little as a single roll of film (processed at the youtuber's expense!). These are the videos first film users watch.

Pieter12 said:
Look at the medium: an analog photo magazine. Plus, the ad is signed Kodak Professional--hardly a division going after the consumer market.

At KA's demise. Although it is signed Kodak Professional, the image and text of the ad suggest to me that KA is going after consumers. (I hope so anyway.)

Pieter12 · Sep 20, 2019

wyofilm said:
They need to participate in a growing market. Someone out there TODAY is using a film camera for the first time. The often maligned, but profitable Lomography, recognizes this. I hope KA recognizes this. Happily for KA, Lomography sells not only its rebranded film, but also Kodak film.

Ilford at least has a series of youtube videos aimed at first time film users. Lomography gets youtube channels to say this episode is sponsored by Lomography by given the channel as little as a single roll of film (processed at the youtuber's expense!). These are the videos first film users watch.

At KA's demise. Although it is signed Kodak Professional, the image and text of the ad suggest to me that KA is going after consumers. (I hope so anyway.)

I think the copy is meant to appeal to the reader's nostalgia of when they possible grew up shooting film, or the imagined good times of the 50's as expressed in the overall look of the ad. Once again, the general public, and most probably the majority of digital-only photographers, is not likely to pick up a magazine that says on its cover, "The entire world of analog photography."

AgX · Sep 20, 2019

Pieter12 said:

the ad is signed Kodak Professional--hardly a division going after the consumer market.

Click to expand...

Kodak Professional is not a division.
All AgX materials are within one division: Paper, Photo Chemicals & Film

Kodak Professional is just a brand put on all AgX products except for Gold and Ultramax films and single-use cameras.

The children in the picture both use Kodak single-use camera.
The text of the ad says practically the same as spoken on the advertising disc above.

mshchem · Sep 20, 2019

ludwighagelstein said:
View attachment 231270

!Back in the golden days of film, Kodak spent a huge amount of money advertising its products.

But with the onset of digital, the amount of ads for Kodak’s film range has dwindled, apart from online.

But that might be about to change.

The latest international edition of PhotoKlassik International magazine, a German magazine aimed at film photography enthusiasts, sports a back-page ad that takes you right back to the days when film was king, queen and every extended member of the royal family.

The ad features a graphic showing a family driving past one of the old “drive through” Kodak-branded kiosks common in US tourist spots in the 1960s and 60s. It says: “Add a special ingredient to your days out… Shoot film and relive your memories for generations!”

“Our contact with Kodak started at the PhotoKina 2018 when we launched the Inaugural issue,” editor Marwan Mozayen told Kosmo Foto. “And the business and sales departments were quite interested. They were very open and we could start with a lot of interviews with the people responsible for the Ektachrome manufacturing.

“And then suddenly they decided to advertise and we started to discuss this with them. What I know was that this specific ad was created during the time we discussed the ad.”

Could this be the start of a new raft of Kodak adverts urging photographers to trade pixels for Portra, Tri-X and Ektar? Given the very promising news about increasing film sales from the likes of Kodak and Ilford Photo recently, that might not be a bad idea."

https://kosmofoto.com/2019/09/kodak...KCzT5XA9ww_r4ajdiUpV2ZVay6QmvwPjwiOyk_DZor_AM

This is great. They should advertise in Brides magazines. People who are growing up today won't have a record of their childhood. I've got perfect 60 year old Kodachrome slides.

cmacd123 · Sep 20, 2019

wyofilm said:
What is a Digital Village for filmmaking and what makes it expensive?

https://www.lynda.com/Filmmaking-tutorials/Creating-video-village/129023/519480-4.html

pentaxuser · Sep 20, 2019

Pieter12 said:
I think the copy is meant to appeal to the reader's nostalgia of when they possible grew up shooting film, or the imagined good times of the 50's as expressed in the overall look of the ad. Once again, the general public, and most probably the majority of digital-only photographers, is not likely to pick up a magazine that says on its cover, "The entire world of analog photography."

If you are right then KA's intent is simply to draw back film users from the yesteryear of the 1950/early 60s. Such people even if they were in their late teens then are now in their 80s so that would seem to be a very short-sighted goal. It may be that KA is responding to what it thinks is an interest in young potential film users in the "good old days" when film was king. An attempt to excite such potential consumers interest in film

I cannot say that you are wrong nor can I say that I am right about KA's objective. What I can say is that if the appeal to return to film is aimed solely at those users of film from the 1950s or even early 60s then this seems very short-sighted even for a company accused of seriously wayward decisions in the past few years and furthermore isn't the company pitching its wares a relatively new company called KA which happens to sell Kodak film?

It is not the "old Kodak" who now simply manufactures film.

Only time and further actions or not as the case will tell us more clearly what KA's objective is

pentaxuser

wyofilm · Sep 20, 2019

cmacd123 said:
https://www.lynda.com/Filmmaking-tutorials/Creating-video-village/129023/519480-4.html

Interesting. Thanks

Nodda Duma · Sep 21, 2019

Kinda with pentaxuser here. This type of advertisement is a test, both of the market and of themselves. Someone inside the marketing division has figured out their old assumptions of name recognition are no longer relevant, and they need to poke their head out of the crumbling ivory tower and directly reaffirm their marketing base instead of just assuming people will buy kodak stuff simply because it’s kodak.

At least on an experimental basis. This ad is someone inside Kodak trying to convince their management that advertising film like this is necessary and will help sales. That’s what I think is going on here.

Damn sight better to see an ad like this in a magazine like that than the gimmicky clothing and crap they’ve been trying to do. It demonstrates they might be getting a clue about today’s market

Agulliver · Sep 21, 2019

wyofilm said:
I agree with you, but I am stumped as to how they would proceed when much of the public thinks that film no longer exists. What is their message?

I do come across a lot of people who see me out and about shooting film and who ask me "Can you still get film for that? Surely film is no longer available?" So from my admittedly limited point of view, a message saying "We still make film. It's still available" would be a good start. I see my local camera shop getting more people coming in buying a battery for their camera which they've got out of the cupboard for the first time in years, and one film to try it again. People do need to know that film is still there.

This advert, however, is preaching to the converted. However it does remind film users that the old yellow giant hasn't been sleeping, or is awakening. I do hope that it is the beginning of Kodak poking it's head out and engaging with people who want to shoot film...not necessarily those already shooting but people who might "dust off my old camera and give it a go" and young people shooting film for the first time. The latter would require advertising elsewhere.

wyofilm · Sep 21, 2019

Nodda Duma said:
Damn sight better to see an ad like this in a magazine like that than the gimmicky clothing and crap they’ve been trying to do. It demonstrates they might be getting a clue about today’s market

+1

First Kodak Print Ad since more than a decade

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