Kodachrome marketing project Part 2

<p>Bill;<br>

Kodachrome to the average person who used it is some name from 1/3 century ago; like an Olds "Rocket V8" ; K&E "Paragon" slide rule; Dietzgen "Sabre" blueline machine . </p>

<p>Kodak owns the Kodachrome name and can use it to hawk anything they want to.</p>

<p>If it helps boost sales of a new product; then it helps the company be healthy through profits.</p>

<p>What really matters is they use their assets like trademarks and brand names to grow; to trash a valuable name to please some old farts stuck in a rut really doesnt matter; they are in the parts per million level; ie noise.</p>

<p>In my 50+ years of shooting Kodachrome I have used it with 828/Bantum; 35mm; 16mm cine; 9.5mm cine and 8mm cine; plus 120 rolls too. Plus I have ordered "Kodachrome Prints" and bought "Kodachrome Filters" too. A neighbor in Michigan shot 4x5 Kodachromes in the early 1950's.</p>

<p>Thus my experience is Kodachrome was never that narrow like todays folks dwelling on 35mm still. They may never have used Kodachrome type F for clear flashbulbs; or type A for 1950's home movies; or bought Kodachrome Prints or seen a Kodachrome 8x10 either. </p>

<p>Thus if somebody says Kodachrome was a narrow product; it makes me laugh alot; since there were so many different Kodachrome stock numbers probably several hundred. One use to get 16mm cine with 8mm spacings; even 400 ft rolls. 8mm and 16mm cine magazine loads were common when I was a kid; even 2x3 sheets for a speed graphic; and modified 3x4 sheets for lantern slides,</p>

<p>What matters is Kodak use its assets well and not kling to the past the by flushing valuable names down the toilet to please a few old farts. </p>

<p>Placing the Kodachrome name on a new inkjet printer and cartridges does not bother me one bit at all. The name is an asset. It is a decade old idea</p>

<p>IF GM launches a hot engine what is a turbo six cylinder and calls it a "ROCKET" ; old farts stuck in their rigid mindsets will be upset too.</p>

<p>GM like Kodak weighs gaining sales with young folks not tied to the past; versus ticking off the old folks in an old home crowd. The old guard with fixed mindsets are not going to buy a hot new car to pickup beach babes; nor be swayed by a Kodachrome song hawking great printer colors.</p>

<p> Subho might want to do a double blind questionaire by age to find who even knows what Kodachrome is; and if the name was re-used would folks get their panties/pants in a knot by age group; and if they have shot any Kodachrome and what era was it; ie Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon etc. </p>

<p> A questionaire from photo.net folks only on Kodachrome is doing a super narrow study and does not represent a random sample of Kodachrome users; more like a ultra biased one.</p>

<p>The only negative thing about making a Kodachrome line of inkjet printers is it will tick off a few parts per million of folks; the cynical ones who will not buy one anyway.</p>

<p>To the average Joe and Jane six pack; they want good prints and lower ink costs; if a Kodachrome jingle sells more printers; more power to Kodak for being wise; let the crusty old farts be upset.</p>

<p>If Joe six pack; an Wisconsin union car maker equates his GREAT old last roll of Kodachrome of his brand new AMC Pacer he helped build; the Simon jingle might have him buy a new Kodak Kodachrome printer.</p>

<p>Joe six pack in Kenosha does not often know K12 from K14; but might know a 252,258 or 304 cid. The marketing connection to Joe six pack is Kodachrome is long lasting color; ie is AMC Pacer Kodachrome slides and his moms Kodachrome Prints still look great.</p>

<p>Ie Kodachrome means long-lasting colors to the average Joe; thus it is usable as a marketing name with inkjet printers. This whole idea is actually from 10 years ago in the Kodak big large format stuff. It was talked about in printing conferences eons ago.</p>

<p>I apologize for pulling this thread so far off topic. I do have one last comment though, before I leave.</p>

<p>Take a look at Polaroid. </p>

<p>There is a brand/product name with very specific implications - Instant Photographs. It is also one of those iconic brands, like Kleenex and Coke, where Polaroid came to mean any instant pictures.</p>

<p>With the advent of digital photography, Polaroids lost their unique advantage. Digital cameras gave us instant pictures that didn't even need to be printed, so Polaroids were no longer even "instant".</p>

<p>What happened to Polaroid? It became a general brand applied to computer printers, batteries, even DVD players if I recall.</p>

<p>Where is Polaroid now? In the dust bin. Someone, somewhere purchased the marketing rights but nothing of consequence has come of it.</p>

<p>Fujifilm still sells instant film products, do people call them Polaroids? - perhaps.</p>

<p>The Impossible Project is attempting to introduce wholly new products to fill the gap Polaroid left behind. I hope they are successful. They won't be called Polaroid.</p>

<p>Point being, even an iconic brand loses its market value rapidly when applied indiscriminately.</p>

<p>Is Kodachrome more valuable than Polaroid? Who knows.</p>

<p>Sure Kodak can do whatever they wish with their assets, but they may not get the market reaction they desire.</p>

 

<p>"Correlation?"</p>

<p>You need to take a statistics, course, Bill. Correlation is *not* the same as causality. Income distribution has shifted a great deal in the last 30 years because tax rates have been slashed for the wealthiest Americans. And I don't just mean income taxes - the wealthiest Americans are taxed at the long-term capital gains rates because most of their income comes from investments. Blame MBAs if you want. Or blame yourself if you voted for Reagan.</p>

<p>As for Kodachrome - let it go. It's gone.</p>

<p>Polaroid had a sales spike with the Britney Spears crowd buying up iZone cameras about 11 years ago.</p>

<p>I even got one; plus a Webster too.</p>

<p>There actually quite funny an old fart backlash; because teenage craze was sticker photos; ie "NOT a proper Polaroid image"</p>

 

<p>http://www.merrillphoto.com/webster.htm</p>

<blockquote>

<p>The Rocket 88 became a household name.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And like Kodachrome, it got it's own song. :-)</p>

 

<p>Another thing to consider is that the name "Kodachrome" was used BEFORE being applied to the specific film we all know and (many of us) love. Kodak originally coined the term for an early motion picture color process.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/subtract.htm">http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/subtract.htm</a></p>

<p>So what is being discussed is already an example of recycling a product name.</p>

<p>Hillary; another good point showing another usage of the Kodachrome brand name in 1915.</p>

<p>I think the purists want to bury the name; when it is an asset. </p>

<p>Ms. Charles....</p>

<p>"And like Kodachrome, it got it's own song. :-)" </p>

<p>Yes! Thank you for the memory. </p>

<p>A. T. Burke</p>

<p>Glad to offer something of value, guys.</p>

<p>Mr. Burke,</p>

<p>The prints you describe (wallet size, rounded corners, plastic base) sound like Kodachrome prints. These were often stamped on the back with the words "Kodachrome Print".</p>

<p>The color on these prints is not as good as Kodachrome slides for two reasons. There is very little color correction in the print material and only a little more in the slide film. I'm not talking about color balance. This kind of color correction comes when the development in one layer affects the development in another layer. If these interaction are managed well, the film has accurate and saturated colors. If not, the images suffered in both accuracy and saturation. Early Kodachrome had some "right-way" interaction that improved the color reproduction. In the first generation of Kodachrome, this was by accident. Mannes and Godowski didn't know anything about these interactions until they found them in the film they had made. While the colors in early Kodachrome were very good at the time, they are rather muted by today's standards. Since the print material had very little of these "right-way" interactions, the colors were degraded a bit more. The other reason for poor color in these prints is that they were often exposed to light--much more often than slides. While Kodachrome materials have outstanding dark dye stability, they do fade in the light. </p>

<p>There is no need to apologize for age and a failing mind. What I read in your posts is considerable experience and the ability to cut to the heart of the matter. Your posts bring new information to the thread rather than repeating old arguments. </p>

<p>What is baffling is that many folks here want a very valuable name to be retired; but also whine about why Kodak does not keep making marginal or lossy products.</p>

<p>On one hand you want a company to flush down the toilet forever a valuable asset; but then whine why they drop products.</p>

<p>This points to the typical lack of business sense; ie no NYC hotdog vendor "smarts"; more like slacker inbred MBA dumbness.</p>

<p>If Kodak can use "Kodachrome" to hawk a new product line to stay heathly; they should do so.</p>

<p>Retiring a valuable brand name to please some grumpy old farts with fixed minds is insane; they need to bring in new blood to Kodak; ie not folks looking in the rear view mirror worried, hell bent on discarding valuable assets.</p>

<p>The cross section of folks who shoot images is not photo.net at all.</p>

<p>*** Thus any great survey that Subho does should also be done at the streetcorner too; in a mall to get data not from gearhounds and collectors; ie get data from Joe and Jane average.<br>

Subho; try to get some data from the average chap/guy/person/gal in the street too; besides photo.net</p>

<p><strong>Hey Guys,</strong></p>

<p><strong>I have got enough responses. If anyone is still planning to take the survey, please DO NOT take it, as it will not be counted. </strong></p>

<p><strong>Thanks to everyone who commented here, although some of those comments were off topic rants or reflections of cynical attitude! All constructive criticisms were duly noted. This was a good learning experience. Hopefully, I will be able to prepare a better survey next time, if needed for any other class. </strong></p>

<p><strong>Double thanks to those who took the survey in good faith, ignoring comments like viral marketing etc. from gossip mongers. I am analyzing the data. I will let you know what I find.</strong></p>

<p><strong>Subho</strong></p>

<p> </p>

<p>The survey results are being gathered from several sources. Photo net is one such source.</p>

<p>Mr. Andrews...</p>

<p>...has again added to the photonet knowledge base as well as kindly answered my question. I thank him. I am in Florida until the end of July. When I get back to my home in Montana, I will look on the back of the little prints and see if they do indeed claim to be Kodachrome prints.</p>

<p>Although I have come to Florida to see a cardiac specialist, I intend to make a side trip to Miami Beach. I have brought two twenty packs of in-date Kodachrome, as well as two old rebuilt Kodak Retina cameras, in order to Kodachrome the old art deco beachfront hotels there. I specifically bought two rebuilt Retinas with Kodachrome-era lenses and coatings, so I could get the most realistic looking pictures. I was also able to obtain a Mamiya 7II medium format camera with its ultra sharp 50mm lens to use as a Kodachrome panorama with a factory insert. This will give me a 24mm by 65mm panorama with the same wide angle effect as using a 50mm lens on a Widelux with a 50mm lens or a Hasselblad Xpan. I intend to scan the results in both a Nikon 9000 and a Nikon 5000 and make them available to the Kodachrome Project.</p>

<p>Mr. Dan Bayer, the prime mover of the Kodachrome Project and fellow Photonetter, has taken a traveling sabbatical to document many things of beauty on the last of the Kodachrome. It occurred to me that there must be many other people getting in their last licks with Kodachrome of both modern and old fashioned places and scenery. I remember many years back that National Geographic did a major article on their switch to color, even getting very technical, showing how Autochrome, Dufaycolor, Findlaycolor, and Kodachrome looked and worked. Of course, they ended up using mostly Kodachrome for so many years. A professional such as Mr. Dan Bayer will undoubtedly get some National Geographic-grade shots in his Kodachrome travels. I would also suppose that during the last year Kodachrome shooting frenzy, there will be many interesting, well exposed shots produced.</p>

<p>Although I'm far less competent, I can read a light meter and squeeze an air bulb shutter release with the best of them. I wonder if a magazine like National Geographic would like to do an article somewhat entitled "75 Years of Kodachrome," using some of their iconic shots, as well as those recently shot by people of Mr. Bayer's competence. I would certainly be willing to throw some of mine in the hat, should they be of any value to the society, just for the sake of documenting Kodachrome, or if payment was to be made, Mr. Bayer would be welcome to include it in his billings to help him offset his valueable but costly Kodachrome Project.</p>

<p>Life also seems to come up with "50 or 60 Years of This" and "75 Years of That" special issues several times a year. Surely they have enough Kodachrome shots in their inventories of unique, world-altering events to justify putting together a special issue. The question is, of course, would it sell enough copies to be profitable? On the other hand, that's the chance they have taken each time they have put out one of these special issues.</p>

<p>I only throw the above out as food for thought, realizing that most likely neither the National Geographic Society nor Life is hungry. I know both companies have been known to have cases of "not invented here" to boot. Perhaps it's only me, but I see the end of Kodachrome as a missed opportunity for more entities than the once-mighty Kodak.</p>

<p>A. T. Burke</p>

<p>The interest of Kodachrome at the end is interesting; sort of like folks who show up at the playoffs; on a team that is going to fold due to lack of fans during the regular season.</p>

<p>Here my pro usage of Kodachrome peaked in the mid 1970's. One would buy bricks of 20 rolls; all of one emulsion number; with added Kodak prepaid lab mailers bundled in the purchase. It was not uncommon to shoot several rolls a week; more than 100 per year.</p>

<p>When Kodachrome 25 came out some of us hated it; damn crappy greens. Thus we hored what worked; ie Kodachrome II and K12. After awhile Kodcahrome 25's bugs got worked out. National Geographic which already bought and tested KII like always; stocked up on even more KII; to have a buffer until K25/K14's color issues went away. There was a hording of what worked; ie old KII/K12.</p>

<p>There were old K12 and new K14 lines running at once. Kodak dropped KII and KX in K12 but kept Pro Kodachrome A for 3400K lighting. Then must of had a mster roll of this stuff because I used and bought it several years after Kii died. The 3400K stuff was nice for some catalog stuff asa 40 under 3400k and asa 32 with 3200K lighting an a filter.</p>

<p>At a photo seminar by Kodak I got a Flexicolor kit about 1972. The film (C41 process) was revolutionary; ie 1 hour. It came out in 110 first the rest later. In portraits many of use used Vericolor II with the new C41 with a custom lab and got great results. The average Joe could get 1 hour colors prints; but Kodacolor was still a SLOW asa 80 then. By 1981 was had a asa 400 Kodacolor product; EQUAL to that High Speed Ektachrome asa 160 plus esp1 envelop gave us asa 400</p>

<p>To shoot sports in color in the mid and earlier 1970's; asa 400 meant slides; ie pushed high speed ektachrome. By the early 1980's; one could shoot with color print film at asa 400 and get results in 1 hour. Like digital; C41's quickness trumped old E4/E6 slide processing. Early asa 400 color print films were grainy; after several generations many of us stopped using alot of pushed high speed ektachrome; c41 stuff was good enough.</p>

<p>The general public with faster films like asa 400 c41 got over the 110 and Kodak disc hangovers; and got good results with dumb simple P&S 35mm camera and 1 hour prints.</p>

<p>The success of GREAT C41; plus asa 400 print films caused the average Joe and Jane to stop shooting slides 25 to 30 years ago. Most all film is shot by amateurs. As slides shot per family dropped; prints shot per family rose. Prints (color) displaced slides . The rise of great color c41 killed of great B&W labs too.</p>

<p>It is sad that all this energy about Kodachrome could have had folks buy film 2 to 3 years ago; to keep the beast alive longer. ie when Kodak was weighing pulling the tubes on the 73 year old; or keep it on life support by massive cash,</p>

<p>There have been some short articles in National Geographic and Life (on-line):</p>

<p> </p>

<h1 >K<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/photogalleries/kodachrome-color-film-discontinued/index.html">ODACHROME: First Great Color Film Remembered in Photos</a></h1>

<p>

<a href="http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1906503,00.html">A BRIEF HISTORY OF Kodachrome</a></h1>

<p> </p>

</p>