USA Today: It won’t be a snap to sharpen its image, but tonight Kodak begins a blitz of new ads and products designed to make consumers see it as a world-class digital-imaging company.
The opening shot will be hard to miss: Ads will air simultaneously at 9 p.m. ET on the major broadcast networks and selected cable channels and Internet sites.
The effort comes at a critical time. Kodak has been restructuring for a digital future for several years. Its EasyShare camera, rolled out in 2001, is the top-selling digital camera in the USA. In June, its digital product sales outpaced film-based products for the first time.
Many consumers still don’t associate Kodak with digital products — and those who do think of it more for the kind of snapshots in its trademark warm and fuzzy ads than for high-end (and high-margin) technology.
“In order to sell across the board … we need to be cool, hip and with-it,” says Carl Gustin, Kodak chief marketing officer. “We still need a little bit of emotion, but we can’t live on puppy dogs, weddings and daddy’s little girl.”
