The difference between good marketing and great marketing is deep thinking. By which I mean not only rational, methodical, grind-it-out decision making, which is certainly important, but also innovative, creative thought, which happens mostly when you talk, sleep, shower, or walk the dog.
I do not include official brainstorming sessions, with whiteboards, lots of butcher paper and markers, and bounding facilitators, because they are the least likely source of original thinking. Eschew them if you can!
Tom Watson Was Right!
In the 1920’s, Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, developed the slogan THINK. It proliferated virally, showing up in IBM offices, plants, and company publications throughout the world, until it pushed out other slogans and was memorialized in wood, stone, and bronze. It lives to this day, and helps account for IBM’s success.
Hoping the Spaghetti Sticks
Too often in marketing the decision dialogue goes something like this, "Well, we always run ads for our Piffley Nudelgummer in the June issue of Spelunking Today, before the annual SpelunkOFest trade show in Las Vegas. I think that we might splurge for a half-page this year!"
Instead of developing objectives for the business and the products, and working forward through strategies and actions to achieve them, we fall back on old habits, supported by inconclusive data. If our marketing is not working, we flail about, trying different messages and media, in the hope that some spaghetti will stick to the wall.
Enough criticizing and complaining, you say, show us something that worked. Tell us a story about successful thinking!
Kodak Ruled the World
Once upon a time, Eastman Kodak Company dominated the world market for professional motion picture film, with an almost obscene 85 to 90% market share. It was a very good product, supported by an incredibly broad and deep organization of sales, application, and technical specialists. The few competitors included Japan’s Fuji Photofilm, Agfa-Gevaert in Belgium and Germany, and Orwo in East Germany. Their films were generally not as good as Kodak’s, and they could not afford the level of support that Kodak offered.
By the early 1980’s, however, Fuji had developed some excellent films to compete with Eastman Color film for feature, television, and documentary production. You could argue about the relative color rendition, sharpness, and graininess of the Fuji and Eastman products, but there was no denying that Fuji films were very good, and their prices were lower. A few prestigious directors shot features in Fujicolor and relaxed, comfortable Kodakers, used to a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast, began to toss and turn and get indigestion.
Nowhere was this more true than in Asia, home to Fuji. The Asian market was very price sensitive, and Fuji’s costs of shipping and support were lower too.
Kodak Marketer Thinks Deeply!
The natural path for Paul Hults, the motion picture marketing director for the Asian region, would have been to increase advertising, or give better prizes at the annual awards ceremonies in Bangkok, Bombay, or Hong Kong. He could have ordered a detailed market research study of the local film industries in many countries. Or called several expensive international meetings.
But Hults thought deeply about the complete Eastman Color film product. The film itself was part of the product, but so were the complex chemical processes that Kodak invented to develop it, the quality control surveys that Kodak provided, and the well-trained teams in every country and at headquarters in Rochester, New York.
Tie Free Premium Service to the Use of Kodak Products
If we could provide even more service, Hults figured, and tie it to the use of Kodak films, then producers and labs who were wavering toward Fuji might have second thoughts.
Hults proposed the idea of putting a motion picture technical consultant in the region, to travel from country to country, and lab to lab, working with them to solve technical problems and establish the highest standards of quality.
This article is not about me, but suffice to say that Graeme Roberts was that lucky consultant. It was a great job, not just because of the extraordinary training I received in Rochester, Chicago, and Hollywood over the course of a year, and the opportunity to travel widely and experience many cultures in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, but because Paul Hults’s vision was dead right.
Deep Thinking Saved the Day
Over the next several years, motion picture labs from Beijing to Bombay, Baghdad to Bangkok, saw real improvement in the quality of their output. A technical problem that almost shut down the one motion picture lab in South Africa was solved, and Kodak kept the business, despite threats of a complete switch to Fuji.
Fuji still sold some film, but it was never able to establish a real beachhead in the market, despite making some outstanding products. Paul Hults had to fight hard to establish a job that did not exist, and to train someone for a whole year, but Kodak’s entire investment was miniscule in comparison to the business it kept and grew.
To this day, Kodak still dominates the relatively strong market for motion picture film, although digital distribution is at last having an impact, as digital cinematography will in the future. Its longevity is due, in no small part, to a marketing heritage that viewed the complete product as a great deal more than a roll of film.
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