Kodak, which has not been seen for a long time, has recently heard good news - in the past few years, the market's demand for traditional film has increased rapidly, prompting the company's film production to quadruple.
"resurrection" is expected?
01
Kodak is a symbol of the film era.
At its peak, Kodak occupied two-thirds of the global film market, creating a performance myth of nearly 400 billion yen, several times that of Fuji's sales at that time. The brand slogan "Kodak Moment" is regarded as a classic by many advertisers.
It’s a pity that “the sunset is infinitely good, it’s just near dusk.” After the peak of
, people's shooting habits and required equipment gradually changed, and the market's demand for film almost fell sharply, and Kodak, whose main business is film, ushered in the darkest moment of the brand.
From 2006 to 2012, Kodak's operating income continued to decline: US$10.558 billion in 2006, US$10.301 billion in 2007, US$9.416 billion in 2008, US$7.609 billion in 2009, US$5.993 billion in 2010, US$3.585 billion in 2011, and US$2.719 billion in 2012.
Finally, in 2012, Kodak, under heavy pressure, officially filed for bankruptcy protection. Kodak's bankruptcy is also regarded by the outside world as a node where the film era has come to an end.
02
From 2012 to now 2022, 10 years have passed, and Kodak has once again become the "guest of the honor" on the hot search list, and what is still good news is still coming.
Could it be that after time has passed, Kodak really wants to stage a "resurrection" and return to the public's vision?
Brand Jun believes that the recovery of users' attitudes towards film products is indeed a rare opportunity for the development of Kodak brand. This is the operating model of the business world. Whether a brand can continue to develop upward is closely related to whether it has hot products, and whether the product can sell well is closely related to the high and low market demand.
But now I think it is too early to say that Kodak is expected to return to the mainstream image market.
Some people may not know that after filing for bankruptcy protection in 2012, the Kodak brand has not completely disappeared and has been actively seeking new opportunities and new possibilities.
At the end of 2014, it announced its entry into the mobile phone industry, and then launched its first Android smartphone IM5 in 2015, and continued to launch Kodak Ektra in 2016.
But there was no wave at that time.
Time has come to 2017. In order to return to the life scenes of young people, Kodak tried to cooperate with fast fashion brand FOREVER 21 to launch a series of nostalgic and retro clothing with Kodak logo as the core element.
In 2018, Kodak launched "Kodak" and stepped into the new field of regional chains.
Brand Jun means that since 10 years ago, Kodak has been "fighting around the world" and wants to regain market recognition, but the result is as we have seen - not ideal.
This time, even though Kodak film production doubled as the popularity of the film became popular, compared with its peak period, there is still a big gap in both market demand and influence at the user level.
At that time, the demand for film in the imaging industry was a "firm demand", but now it is more of a "hobby".
Let me put it this way. Today, Kodak may be easy to live with food and clothing, but it is more difficult to live happily. In addition to
film, brands need new products that can drive performance growth.
03
When talking about Kodak's collapse, some people regretted and some sighed, and more people were "hate the iron but failed to turn into steel". Even if 10 years have passed, I still feel uneasy.
Mingming's prototype of the world's first digital camera was designed by Kodak engineer Steven Sassen. At that time, Kodak had resources and talents that other brands could not reach, perhaps because of the conservative brand strategy, perhaps because of the wrong assessment of future trends, or perhaps because of overconfidence in existing achievements. In short, the final outcome was that Kodak, who became a film, was caught off guard by the rapidly rising digital. The story of Kodak once again confirms the two laws of brand management.
One of them is to respond to changes in the same way and is not suitable for the business world. Kodak didn't want to change, wanted to live a comfortable life with film, and then with the rise of digital cameras, it ended with film.
Technology in all walks of life is upgrading and iterating. The only way for brands to maintain their competitive advantage is to respond quickly and continue to output products that meet their needs as market changes.
The second, the best crisis PR is to kill the crisis in the cradle and prevent it from breaking out. Compared to making up for the failure, brands should have a more forward-looking awareness and predict and avoid the company's development path and possible risks in advance.
Otherwise, if the crisis has occurred and the consequences have been caused, and if you remedy it, you will get half the result with twice the effort and have little effect.
Look at Kodak, that's it.
Of course, no matter what, the brand still hopes that those brands that have shined in the industry, including Kodak, can survive well and become more and more exciting.
market, need to shine with stars.
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