- Ever wonder why we smile in photos?
Well, you can probably thank Kodak
and their 1908 product campaign for it.
In this video, I'm gonna talk to you
about how Kodak mastered positioning
to drive sales of 150,000 camera units
in its first year of product launch.
I'm gonna dig into how their unique messaging,
pricing, and positioning
changed the way people took pictures
and how brands approach marketing strategies
to this very day.
Hey, everyone, my name is Tory,
and this Kodak ad is why we smile in pictures.
Back in 1900, smiling in pictures wasn't very cool.
You may think this was because life
was just so hard in black and white,
but it's actually for two other reasons.
Long photo exposure times
meant the person in the picture had to stay still
while the picture was being taken.
So that meant a blank expression
was easier to hold than a smile,
and big smiles were considered silly and unsophisticated.
Even prolific writer Mark Twain
once shared his hate for people smiling in photos
back in the day.
Now, let's take it a little further back to 1888.
This was when Kodak released the first mass-marketed camera
with the debut of the Brownie.
Essentially what the iPod was to music,
the Brownie was to pictures,
but they had a problem.
It sounds funny, but back in the day,
people didn't really know
what they were supposed to do in photos.
At that point, the only frame of reference
society really had for photos were paintings of portraits,
and no one really smiled in portraits because,
just like exposure times,
they have to hold it for a really long time.
But Kodak knew they had to figure out a way to boost sales.
They strategized that if they could get more people,
specifically the middle class, to take more pictures,
then it could help them sell more cameras,
film, and services to develop that film.
So how'd they do it?
They reached their target audience
by making the picture-taking process
seem less complicated and more accessible to beginners,
and they boosted sales by offering a great price
in marketing fun over frown.
Kodak legitimately would ask customers
to take what they were calling snapshots at the time
whenever a good time was about to go down,
thus capturing naturally smiling moments.
It's believed the thought was
if people were taking more snapshots
of everyday happy moments,
then they take more pics.
More pics, more money.
But still stuck with the label of silly,
those smiles didn't hit the masses
or any photo ads yet.
This, of course, was only until 1903,
when Kodak released a game-changing
$20 folding pocket camera.
The product was convenient,
and the price point with affordable
for their target audience.
A few years later, Kodak released this ad in 1908.
This, at the time, revolutionary picture
showed a woman with a beaming smile,
holding her brand spanking new Kodak camera.
The image is amazing,
but can I please give a special shout out to this 1908 copy?
"More pleasure at the moment,
and afterwards, the added charm of pictures
that tell the vacation story,
and it is all made so simple by the Kodak system
that the merest novice can make good pictures
from the start.
Kodak has removed most of the opportunities
for making mistakes."
Tell me that is not how you speak directly to your audience.
In terms of impact, by the 1920s,
other companies started using their version
of smiling models in ads too
to sell everything from cars to food.
Kodak took a major risk in their marketing campaign,
and it led to other companies pretty much following suit.
So what did this teach us?
Back in the day, marketing and advertising
focused on the four Ps.
Kodak created an innovative product.
They released it at an affordable price point
for the middle class.
And they created strong advertising
that promoted the use of the product
by positioning it as easy to use
during life's everyday moments.
The combination of these four Ps drove up sales
and led to the creation of one of the most
culturally influential campaigns of all time.
As for Kodak today, they actually went bankrupt in 2012.
Why?
That is for another video.
But if hearing about this iconic ad campaign
made you start to, you know, think about your own ideas,
click the link in the description
to get started on your very own.
We've put together an amazing guide
to help you go from plan all the way to launch.
As always, if you like what you heard
and you wanna hear more,
comment, like, and subscribe down below to hear more.
Bye bye.
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