Kodak's head of marketing sat down with iMedia to talk about his career, changes at Kodak and how the internet fits into it all.
Kodak's head of marketing and business development gave the opening keynote address at last month's ad:tech San Francisco conference with a presentation titled, "This Is Not Your Father's Kodak."
iMedia's Chief Content Officer and Editor at Large Brad Berens sat down with Jeff Hayzlett, chief business development officer at Eastman Kodak, to dig into what's happening at the world's most famous photo company.
Brad Berens: You came to Eastman Kodak Company in April 2006 as the CMO and VP of the Graphic Communications Group. Then, 18 months later, the company created the chief business development officer and vice president position for you. Unlike most CMOs, your job also encompasses all bizdev. How does this "super CMO" position change the marketing component?
Jeff Hayzlett is chief business development officer at Eastman Kodak.
Jeffrey Hayzlett: The key word here is "complement," not "change." The CBDO position is about marketing complementing smart business development -- driving growth and finding a consistent voice throughout the company's business development and marketing organizations.
After four years of aggressive corporate transformation, Kodak is emerging this year as a new, digital company with a new voice. Sixty percent of the people who work here today didn't work here four years ago; Kodak has 19 different product lines that represent 80 percent of our revenue -- half of which didn't exist four years ago, and all of which are either number one, two or three in market share in their categories. Our mantra this year is grow, grow, grow -- so the connection with business development makes tremendous sense.
Berens: For Kodak, digital is more than just another advertising platform: digital technologies did a lot to change the nature of the product line you're marketing. Do those product changes give Kodak any particular insight into marketing within interactive technologies? What are the special digital challenges that Kodak faces?
Hayzlett: We don't think of marketing as "traditional" or "digital." The model has simply moved from broadcast to "narrowcast," whether we're talking about online marketing or customized direct response. It's about finding your customers and communicating messages that move them.
Major advertisers used to rely on television. We all remember those touching, tear-jerker ads that Kodak used to run. At the time, those ads worked. The strength of the Kodak brand proves it.
Today, we're challenged to reiterate Kodak's brand promises of trust, reliability and quality in our marketing, while adjusting our messages to relate to a savvier, edgier customer. And we have to deliver these messages through different channels, to catch our customers where they're paying attention.
I've actually created new positions to ensure we maximize every opportunity. Our new director of convergence media is responsible for taking our mainstream marketing components and delivering them through all digital media -- web advertising, podcasts, infomercials, etc. We've also just named a chief blogger, whose job it is to continue communicating outwardly from our employees to our customers online via our two corporate blogs -- 1000 Words and 1000 Nerds -- as well as to actively listen to online conversations and learn from fans and critics alike.
Berens: Let's drill down into the two new positions you've created, starting with the director of convergence media. Can you tell me more about this person, if he or she has already been hired? Convergence was such a dirty word after the dot-pocalypse of 2001, but thinkers like MIT's Henry Jenkins have been doing a lot to rehabilitate the term. The problem with some brands is that they do a dumbed-down convergence where the TV :30s simply get placed online, where there are different expectations for the balance between content and advertising. Hulu, for example, is testing out a program where viewers can choose the ads they want to watch, which is remarkable. What is the brief for this director position, and how is what you call narrowcasted advertising in this convergence environment different?
Hayzlett: I've already hired the director of convergence media. Tom Hoehn is a longstanding Kodak employee who had helped establish a lot of our online activities already. It's a new role for him and for Kodak, but it's the right time.
Nowadays, "convergence" isn't about repurposing traditional media and simply slapping it up on the internet somewhere. In fact, you can see successful marketers doing the exact opposite-- the Doritos ads that started out as an online consumer contest is one example. For Kodak, convergence is about doing what we've always done -- listening to our customers and responding to them with information and offers that move them. Tom's role is all about being involved at the inception of a marketing concept, across our business units and working to connect the dots to ensure we're considering how we can leverage assets and resources to reach our customers where they are, with messages and information they're looking for.
With this background, you can see how what Tom will do is exactly narrowcasting -- reaching specific consumers where they are with offers they'll want.