Text Size 
Know Who You’re Talking To. Placing ads about your hot new nightclub in retiree magazines may not make much sense. In that case, it wouldn’t make sense to distribute free passes to your opening night to those folks, either. When Kodak wanted to make college students aware of our new inkjet printers, we went right where college students are: on campus. We worked with a college athletic organization to get demonstrations of our printers onto a hundred campuses, and exposed hundreds of thousands of students to our easy-to-use, high-quality system. With the promise of free printouts, a chance to win a trip to the Sugar Bowl, and a great discount on a Kodak printer, our target customers flocked to learn more – and we had them, hook, line and sinker.
Drive Home the Message. To increase awareness of Kodak’s consumer inkjet printers, Kodak teams took to the streets. Our goal: find holiday shoppers and make sure they know that Kodak’s printers cost a lot less to operate than our competitors’. We were armed with fun giveaways (giving away free stuff is always a great way to get attention), but wanted to be sure people got more than a neat tchotchke. So we quizzed people before they could win the prize: “Why do we eat salad before dinner? Why do we wear wedding bands on our left hand? And most importantly, why do we pay so much for printer ink?” In other words: Why do we accept certain things as status-quo, without questioning the validity of the assumption? Our key message was clear: “Now you don’t have to spend so much on ink.” Understand that, THEN you win your free gift!
With these rules in mind, I challenge my team to keep thinking of the next “big idea.” Get attention, catch our customers in the moment, and make sure they remember why their best choice is Kodak.
- Jeff
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes