Kodak Zooms In on Women

NEW YORK Kodak is using an arsenal of national media properties anchored by assets under the recently formed Women@NBCU banner to drive a value message for its fledgling printer and ink business.The new campaign, which directly challenges some of the leading competitors in the field, uses a combination of branded integrations on properties including Bravo, Oxygen and iVillage, and, to a lesser degree, Nickelodeon. Print, online and TV spots drive viewers to a Web site, printandprosper.com, where users can compare ink prices with those from brands including HP, Epson, Canon, Lexmark and Brother. Those companies either declined comment or didn't return calls seeking comment on the Kodak campaign.Leslie Dance, vp, brand marketing and communication at Kodak, said the company is targeting "ultra-high burners." Internally, said Dance, Kodak marketers profiled the consumers they're after as female, "40, feisty and facing frugality." These women, she added, are usually a family's "memory keeper."Market research, Dance said, also showed that "by far the largest consumer dissatisfaction with home printers is the cost of ink."Deutsch, the Interpublic shop that won the estimated $40-50 million media account (printer and ink) last November, approached NBCU about anchoring the TV portion of the campaign around the Women@NBCU properties.Peter Gardiner, chief media officer at Deutsch, said the combination of platforms and properties within the Women@NBCU collection of assets and the network's ability to offer creative integrations appealed to the marketer.The Kodak deal, said Maryam Banikarim, svp, sales marketing at NBCU, was "one of the first" major packages assembled under the Women@NBCU banner since the unit was formed last summer. Other deals will be unveiled soon, she said.Kodak's printer and ink line will be integrated in the properties in a variety of ways. For instance, it's being tied to a BravoTV.com segment that debuts this week -- promoted on the cable network -- called the Makeover-Matic, which allows users to create new hair colors and test different kinds of makeup, and then print out the images. The sponsorship includes a "brought to you by" Kodak shout-out as well as online messaging located by the Makeover-Matic app. There are also custom vignettes highlighting the products on the TV network.The client also sponsors Oxygen.com's Obsessed, a "hot list" of suggested products, from nail art to videos, found on the home page. A button links to a Kodak ad covering two-thirds of a screen. The ad ends with the lines, "Switch to a printer that uses only fairly priced ink. Now who wouldn't love that?" followed by a link to Kodak's printandprosper.com Web site. The Oxygen network will also air Kodak-branded vignettes in mid-May.Gardiner said NBCU was also appealing because he could cherry pick additional properties owned by the media company, such as NBC's Today show, the USA Network and prime-time programs including The Biggest Loser. While technically not part of Women@NBCU, they're being used to round out the campaign.The Nickelodeon sponsorship includes spots on Nick Jr., Nick at Night and an online "activity center" for kids and parents that links to the Kodak Web site. Nick also has an on-site Kodak kiosk at its hotel in Orlando, Fla., that promotes the printer and ink line.The campaign, which kicked off three weeks ago, runs through the end of the year. Early results have been positive, said Kodak's Dance. Product sales, Web traffic and brand awareness tracking, she added, are all "doing much better than we expected -- and we had high expectations."

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Kodak Zooms In on Women

Steve Mcclellan

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