Client: Kodak?
Agencies: Partners & Napier, Ketchum, Deutsch and Ogilvy?
Outtake: Target a new consumer?base while promoting Kodak’s?”Share” button on its EasyShare?M-Series digital line through an?integrated campaign.?
To reach the young, urban, socially connected demographic, Kodak introduced an integrated campaign that yielded strong results, leading to a better than 25% increase in purchase consideration for its digital cameras. ?
Using research from Radian6’s social media monitoring software, the Rochester, N.Y.-based company found that 38% of Kodak mentions on blogs, in tweets and in Facebook status updates had to do not with its products but with users’ most camera-ready moments.?
The company has seen its brand name appropriated not only by consumers but by the hip-hop community: rapper T.I.’s single “Mr. Kodak” dropped last November.?
To engage Millennials – those 18-to-30-year-old consumers who like to share digital pictures and videos with their friends – Kodak tapped several different creative resources for the “So Kodak” integrated campaign. ?
Darryl Cobbin, president and chief brand positioning officer of Brand Positioning Doctors; Stanley Yorker, a veteran creative director who specializes in marketing to Millennials; and Jesse Askew, public relations consultant, directed the campaign strategy, while agencies Partners & Napier, Ketchum, Deutsch and Ogilvy handled the creative development and execution.?
STRATEGY: Launched in October 2010, the campaign featured nine, 15-second TV spots from famed music video and commercial director Chris Robinson which ran nationally ?during programs popular with Millennials. The spots featured hip-hop artists Rihanna, Drake, Pitbull and Trey Songz snapping their “most picture-worthy selves” with Kodak’s Easy-?Share M-Series digital cameras, showcasing the “Share” button that lets users tag and upload their photos directly via Facebook, Flickr and YouTube when the camera is connected to a computer.?
Kodak partnered with more than 30 local radio stations that targeted predominantly African-American and Hispanic audiences, running three, 60-second radio spots across 10 markets including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta. Other campaign elements included outdoor, social media (including the participating artists’ Facebook and Twitter pages), and a live concert in Times Square.?
Two microsites also supported the campaign. Consumers were able to send photos of themselves to AreYouSoKodak.com, which were aired on an interactive billboard in Times Square. The SoKodak.com microsite offered an overview of the campaign, creative assets and features of the M-Series.?
“The campaign pretty much utilized everything with the exception of a big print component – that wasn’t the most efficient way to reach the target we wanted to reach,” said Jeffery ?Gabel, chief creative officer at Partners & Napier.?
Since the second half of the year is typically stronger for digital camera sales and the electronics market overall, the paid media portion of the campaign ended in Q4 2010. However, social media elements, including tie-ins with artists’ fan pages and Kodak’s YouTube channel, continue. ?
RESULTS: During the campaign’s run, purchase consideration for Kodak and its “Share” feature increased among the brand’s core “soccer mom” customer base, as well as African-Americans, Caucasians and Latinos in the Millennial group. Vincent Young, director of marketing for the Americas at Kodak, said the company saw a more than 25% increase in purchase consideration for its digital cameras across all consumer profiles. ?
“We were very pleased with the results,” said Young. “However, we would have liked the overall market for digital cameras in the fourth quarter to be stronger than it was.”
