Response Magazine

Cover Story

K odak Inks a Ne w

DRTV Blockbuster

“ Direct response TV gave us the control we needed in telling our story, and the long-form option allowed us to roll out the right information so that consumers could absorb and process it,” says Rick Allen, worldwide director, advertising & branding, for Eastman Kodak Co.’s consumer digital group. “The EasyShare printer line that rolled out in 2007 was a completely new concept for Kodak and we had to get that story out. It would have been much harder to do in traditional advertising vehicles. DRTV gave us the flexibility to control our message.”

And what a message it turned out to be. Kodak’s DRTV campaign for the EasyShare 5300 all-in-one printer — one of three in a line introduced by the company in early 2007 — debuted shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday last November, but was off the air within 30 days. The reason? Quite simply, Kodak sold out of the printers from a DRTV inventory. In fact, nearly 300,000 EasyShare printers were sold during the campaign.

“Our conversion rate on the phone was about 50 percent, with the other 50 percent who didn’t order at the time asking for more information, such as where is it available at retail,” contends Allen, who is based in the company’s Rochester, N. Y., headquarters. “Considering about 30 percent of our sales came through the Web site promoted in the show and that retail sales did exceedingly well, it appears that many of that 50 percent who didn’t order on the phone may have purchased the printer via the Web or at retail.”

Considering this was the nearly 130-year old company’s first educated foray into the DRTV space, you’d think it would have been a slow and measured process. However, Allen — a 23-year veteran of Eastman Kodak, but with just 18 months in his current role — says that the agreement to use long-form DRTV by everyone involved in marketing the product took place a mere seven weeks before the campaign first aired. “Only because we had a great internal team and the best agency partners were we able to get this done in seven weeks,” he adds. “We had the people with the right expertise and information.”