Kodak Takes Edgy Approach to Ads

Kodak’s been a company in transition over the past few years. With film being phased out by digital cameras and the desire to share at an all-time high, the firm once known for showing the world its true colors has had to switch tactics—and it’s chosen some controversial brand ambassadors for its “So Kodak” campaign.

Trey Songz, Drake, Pitbull, and Rihanna are the new pitchmen, taking their fans behind the scenes of their tours and sharing some of their “special moments.” The approach is to capitalize on Kodak 2.0, which the company says is all about sharing.

Gone are the warm and fuzzy pictures of families. They’ve been replaced by those moments we all know and love—of friends partying, of friends at a concert—in short, the Facebook version of photos.

“Everything we do, and have done in the past couple of years, has a social element to it,” says Leslie Dance, vice president of Kodak’s worldwide brand marketing. But we all have moments that we wish weren’t captured on film, or in the tabloids, and immediately sent to the Internet. And Kodak’s new ad guys are no exception.

Songz was accused of breaking up Toni Braxton's marriage with a video kiss and may be in legal trouble for allegedly making out with a 15-year-old fan at a New Jersey concert. Drake was reportedly smoking a joint right after he wrapped his four-song performance at Tuesday night’s splashy ad campaign launch in New York’s Best Buy Theater in Times Square. Pitbull missed the show entirely after having broken his arm. And Rihanna has had her share of controversy after her then-boyfriend Chris Brown beat her on the night of the Grammys.

Which begs the question, why would Kodak connect with controversial artists?

Apparently, it’s all about having a little edge. “These three artists are up-and-coming, and they really connect with the consumers we’re trying to reach,” says Dance.

They definitely connect alright, as a legion of “Trey’s Angels” screeched when the hip-hop star took to the stage, and Drake’s fans sang half of his songs for him.

Still, for a company that posted an 11 percent decline in sales last quarter, and a 6 percent fall of business on the digital side, a little controversy may not be such a bad thing.

But will that hint of scandal lead consumers to buy new offerings which include the $200 EasyShare M590, or the $229 Playtouch video camera? The answer from Tuesday's audience is maybe, maybe not. The Kodak execs, mostly clad in leather jackets, all had their cameras as did some of the Best Buy employees in the crowd, and DJ Enuff, of New York’s Hot 97 and the Angie Martinez show, who served as an MC of sorts. But what was most visible throughout the night were the BlackBerry phones and iPhones flashing red lights as fans recorded the performances.

Is Kodak worried that smartphones will make the stand-alone camera go the way of film? “Not at all,” Dance says. “For the special moments in life, people still use cameras because photos you take with a cell phone are never the same quality as those taken with a camera.”

But smartphones do have one crucial element: they’re mobile. And as the world keeps getting more social, the ability to upload a photo in the moment can outweigh the desire to have a good quality image. While Kodak makes it easy to share and upload to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and the Kodak Picture Gallery, shutterbugs still have to connect their cameras to a computer in order to complete the upload. Would Drake and Trey Songz take the time to hook up to a laptop instead of just connecting from their mobile devices if they weren’t pitching the product? Maybe, maybe not. Either way, Kodak will be smart to keep developing its Gallery app and making the picture taking and sharing experience so mobile.

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Romy Ribitzky is an associate editor at Portfolio.com.