Kodak.
A company that once was synonymous with photography that is now synonymous with failure.
There are a million stories detailing their demise, but fundamentally, it wasn’t because they couldn’t innovate [they were one of the pioneers of digital photography], they didn’t want to bring it to market because they didn’t want to kill their photographic developing business, even though that business was going to kill them if they continued with it.
But this post isn’t a bad history lesson, it’s about the new Kodak … the lean, mean, technology machine.
Have a look at this …
Yep, it’s the World’s first 360 degree action-camera with 4k picture detail.
OK, so you could say bringing out a device like this, years after GoPro blew-up the market, shows Kodak still have a habit of being late to change, but at least this time they are trying to offer a fundamentally better product than what is currently available – not to mention leveraging the 360 degree market, that seems to have come from nowhere.
But even that isn’t what this post is about.
No, what this is about is that based on this ad, Kodak still think it’s the 1980’s.
A few years ago, I wrote how one of GoPro’s strengths was how they were part of the culture they were making products for. This authenticity separated them from the countless other brands that tried to jump on the bandwagon – even when they had arguably better products.
Two years later and it seems some brands still haven’t grasped the importance of focusing on the culture, rather than the category.
Look at that ad. Look at it.
It’s fucking horrible.
If a photo of the London skyline from a bloody restaurant wasn’t bad enough [what the hell is ‘action cam’ about that???] … what about the utterly terrible shot of the product.
A brown square with a shitty dome on top.
It looks like a crap 1950’s robot toy that you’d find in a Kinder-Surprise.
What the hell were Kodak thinking?
And then there’s the product name and the font choice.
PIXPRO … using a stencil type font in a desperate bid to look cutting edge.
If your product is the ‘future’, you don’t need to use a shitty font because people will work it out for themselves. And even if you decide you absolutely, positively, desperately want to do it … my advice is to not use a font that is synonymous with the 1982!
And what’s that line … ‘Brings You Closer’.
What does it even mean?
Here is a product that gives you 360 degree views [which, arguably, they don’t even show in the ad] and they use that line.
Mind you, here is a product that gives you 360 degree views in 4k quality, and they don’t even help you understand what 4k quality means to the recipient.
There is so much they could do to make people want to know more – even using an old-school print ad – but no, they’ve gone for the worst advertising you could get.
Apparently the product is quite good … but sadly for Kodak, with a name that represents the past rather than the future and an ad that reinforces that perspective, I think the only view they’ll be seeing is their once great name growing smaller and smaller into the distance.