Preview

Kodak- Marketing Myopia

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
533 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Kodak- Marketing Myopia
Kodak Marketing Myopia:
For 40 years, you couldn’t walk through Grand Central Station in New York
 without admiring the Kodak Coloramas. These 18×60 foot photographs showcased the Kodak brand to commuters, highlighting the creativity of great photography in a series of “Kodak moments.” Kodak marketing executives were adept at weaving the brand into the fabric of America for generations. In fact, at its peak, Kodak captured 90% of the US film market and was one of the world’s most valuable brands.
Immensely successful companies can become myopic and product oriented instead of focusing on consumers’ needs. Kodak’s story of failing has its roots in its success, which made it resistant to change. Its insular corporate culture believed that its strength was in its brand and marketing, and it underestimated the threat of digital.
Kodak did not fail because it missed the digital age. It actually invented the first digital camera in 1975. However, instead of marketing the new technology, the company held back for fear of hurting its lucrative film business, even after digital products were reshaping the market.
Unfortunately, the company had the nearsighted view that it was in the film business instead of the story telling business, and it believed that it could protect its massive share of market with its marketing. Kodak thought that its new digital technology would cannibalize its film business. Sony and Canon saw an opening and charged ahead with their digital cameras. When Kodak decided to get in the game it was too late. The company saw its market share decline, as digital imaging became dominant.
This blind faith in marketing’s ability to overcome the threat from the new technology proved fatal. Kodak failed to adapt to a new marketplace and new consumer attitudes.
The essence of marketing is asking first, “what business are we in?” and not “how do we sell more products?” Had early 20th Century railroad executives seen themselves as being in the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    Kodak is best known for photographic film products. Kodak fixated on digital photography and digital printing and attempted to produce revenues through aggressive patent litigation. With the slogan "you press the button, we do the rest," George Eastman put the first simple camera into the hands of a world of consumers in 1888. In so doing, he made a cumbersome and complicated process easy to use and accessible to nearly everyone. (Muinr, K. (2012).…

    • 2126 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    BUS 599

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages

    BUS 599 Week 9 Assignment 3 A New Strategy for Kodak-Case 28 The rise and fall of Eastman Kodak…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Kodak Memo

    • 1201 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Kodak has been slowly executing a plan to make the transition from a film business, to a profitable and sustainable digital company. Kodak has faced great difficulties such as:…

    • 1201 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    When Kodak began making changes to its organizational architecture in 1984, its current architecture did not fit the business environment for the industry. The largest factor that motivated Kodak to make this change was increased competition and decreased market share. Until the early 1980’s, Kodak owned the film production market with very little competition. This suddenly changed when Fuji Corporation and many other generic store brands began producing high quality film as well (Brickley, 2009, p. 358). Another factor in this change was technology advancements. As technology rapidly expanded in the 1980’s, other competitors obtained the ability bring new products to market in a much shorter timeframe (Brickley, 2009, p. 358). Film and related products became more readily available, resulting in a more competitive film production industry. With this changing market environment and technological advancement, Kodak lost its monopoly in the film production market and was forced to make a change.…

    • 824 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    A New Strategy for Kodak

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Kodak is one of the many companies that has succumbed to a disruptive technology some call the digital divide. They recently came out of chapter 11 bankruptcy, which allowed them to restructure the organization. Entering the company at this point and as a business consultant for the company, I would recommend a restructuring of the internal core. Focus on the business’s operational and functional aspects and how to leverage the new venture to increase profitability and sustain a competitive advantage in the industry. To start the process, Kodak should identify a worthy organization and enter into an agreement with a reputable organization to implement the cloud service using the existing Kodak business model. This will reduce the possibility of the selective company to be a competitor.…

    • 1669 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Plaintiff Vs Kodak

    • 3132 Words
    • 13 Pages

    Kodak manufactures and sells complex business machines — as relevant here, high volume photocopier and micrographics equipment. Kodak equipment is unique; micrographic software programs that operate on Kodak machines, for example, are not compatible with competitors' machines. Kodak parts are not compatible with other manufacturers' equipment, and vice versa. Kodak equipment, although expensive when new, has little resale…

    • 3132 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Kodak’s strategy for digital imaging has been way off and its first digital product, the “Photo CD” which was a failure. It couldn’t leverage upon world’s first electronic image sensor that they launched earlier that was widely used by computer industry worldwide. They used all strategies to the disposal but its timing was way off. They used Radical to incremental innovation an example is their digital photography compared to Sony’s…

    • 523 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Eastman Kodak

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages

    With the slogan “you press the button, we will do the rest”, George Eastman (a high school dropout) put the very first simple camera into the hands of a world of consumers in 1888 ("History of Kodak," n.d., para. 1). For many years, Eastman Kodak was virtually the only film manufacturer around so they had a monopoly in film production. Kodak was able to control the timing for introducing new products into the market and was able to make changes due to customer demand.…

    • 992 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    It has come to my attention that there are some major flaws lying inside our organizational architecture. These flaws lay in the foundation of Kodak`s organization structure and so we cannot move forward until these basic errors are corrected. We are seeking companywide success and must act as a company to achieve this.…

    • 1679 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Investement

    • 9031 Words
    • 37 Pages

    On June 1, 2006, the house lights dimmed at the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital conference. On the large screens fianking the stage, a film called the "Winds of Change" started. In the film, a dignified white-haired spokesman standing in front of sentimental images of puppies, babies, balloons and birthday parties began talking about the "golden days" at Kodak— the days of the "Kodak moment" in photography. Signaling a shift in the tone of the film, the spokesman looked straight into the camera and said, "Get's ya misty, doesn't it? Yep, they shoveled on the schmaltz pretty thick—but that kinda crap doesn't work anymore." Now people wanted everything to be digital, the speaker stressed, becoming more frenzied as he spoke about digital photography and Kodak's role in it. The viewing audience chortled when the speaker intoned. You thought they (Kodak) were just hiding out waiting for this 'digital thing' to blow over didn't you? Oh, sure. For a while they were like, 'Ohhh, there's no way digital's going to catch on'.. .But now Kodak's back! With swelling enthusiasm, the spokesman extolled Kodak's research and development in digital photography, ending by pulling at his hair and exclaiming, "You were a Kodak moment once and by God, you'll be one again...only this time its digital. Whooo-yeah!"^ The spokesman appeared…

    • 9031 Words
    • 37 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kodak Case

    • 2321 Words
    • 10 Pages

    Eastman Kodak Company, commonly known as Kodak is an American multinational imaging and photographic equipment, materials and services company headquartered in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded by George Eastman in 1889. Kodak is best known for photographic film products. During most of the 20th century Kodak held a dominant position in this sector. In fact, Eastman Kodak Co. is one of the dominant market share holders within the camera and other photography-related industries. Kodak pioneered amateur photography and is often credited for the invention of roll film and the first camera. The markets for color film and color photofinishing in 1954 were controlled by Kodak. It had over 90% of the amateur color negative film market. In 1994, Kodak appeals to court to terminate 1921 and 1954 decrees that restrict pricing policies. Moreover, fifteen years ago, Kodak was the fourth most valuable brand in the world after Disney, Coca-Cola and Microsoft, but today, the company has totally sunk. Indeed, on January 19, 2012, the company filed for bankruptcy.…

    • 2321 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kodak has been losing market share for the past five years to the point it has gone from 76% to 70%. The underlying causes that have generated such losses and have ultimately led consumers to favor competing brands with larger growth are:…

    • 1420 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Prior to 1993 I would say that Kodak’s generic strategy was broad differentiation. They were a well established company in business for more than 100 years, had a very strong brand identity, very strong reputation for their research and development, and a very broad distribution network. Kodak was known for getting into many different projects, products, and industries. The company was a dominant competitor for many years in all of the industries they served. They also held a large number of patents for technology that they developed as market leaders. I believe this shows how they differentiated themselves from their competition. They acquired vast amounts of cash and assets as well. This is part of the reason that I did not see them as more of a low-cost provider. They were more focused on technology and innovation. As with any technology driven industry things began to change, and although still a dominant force, Kodak was beginning to decline in strength. They were getting lost in the middle with their strategy due to a lack of focus. They involved themselves in too many industries/markets. A new CEO, George Fisher, was named to head the company in 1993. Portions of the company were sold off, focus was placed on drastically cutting costs, and the main focus was on the digital imaging industry. Under Fisher digital print stations, new digital cameras, and thermal printers were introduced. The company had its new strategy – focused low cost provider.…

    • 2176 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    It employed over 62,000 employees and dominated this industry. As time progressed, as did the technology in this industry. Today Kodak only employees roughly 7,000 employees. The reason for this downfall was the inability for kodak to adapt with the current market. Competitors such as Nikon and Canon began switching from film photography to digital photography. As kodak made no changes to their industry, they quickly fell to the bottom as their competitors rose. Therefore, adaptation is incredibly important. New technology pushes industries to adapt. Morelli states this by explain “The forces of attraction anchor skilled labor and specialized services, but the exact kind of skills and services evolve over time, following the changing terrain of the technological frontier”. As I stated earlier, for this to occur, there need to be educated smart individuals that understand the ever-changing economy. The fact is, that there are simply not many of these people, and the individuals that do fall under this category congregate in certain areas, because that is where the jobs…

    • 1110 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In more recent times, the same question was answered differently by Kodak to create the first digital camera solutions, that enabled customers to not only see their photos instantly but also discard or retake poor pictures without any cost to them. Thus the digital camera is taking over the world, and film is slowly dwindling away.…

    • 296 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics