advertising of photographic products
In the mid-1880s, even before he had introduced his revolutionary Kodak camera, George Eastman told J. Walter Thompson, founder of the famous advertising agency, that ‘a picture of a pretty girl sells more than a tree or a house’. With his innate business sense, Eastman had realized what other manufacturers were slower to grasp: advertising would be absolutely crucial if the fledgling market for amateur photography were to flourish. Traditionally, photographic goods had only been advertised in specialist publications, aimed at a limited audience. Cameras such as the Kodak required a radically different approach, reflecting the knowledge, needs, and desires of a broad middle-class market. Rather than details of lens apertures and shutter speeds, what was needed were strong visual images combined with memorable slogans. Eastman took a personal interest in this aspect of the business, coming up with the classic line ‘You press the button, we do the rest.’ Advertisements were placed in magazines such as Punch and the Illustrated London News and leading illustrators such as Frederic Remington and Fred Pegram were commissioned to produce the artwork. When photographs replaced drawings, photographers such as Edward Steichen were employed by Kodak to create their adverts.
Crucially, manufacturers soon realized that they were not selling just cameras and film but dreams, hopes, and, most importantly, memories, and that the best way to reach the customer was to appeal directly to their aspirations and emotions. Two ‘hot buttons’ pressed by advertisers over many years have been the idea of the ‘Kodak Moment’ as cement for the family group, and the notion of individual creativity in an impersonal world. The importance attached to advertising is indicated by the fact that in 1892, when total sales were less than £50, 000, Kodak in Britain spent nearly £5, 000 on advertising. Today, the UK photographic market is worth over £1 billion annually and manufacturers invest c. £30 million trying to persuade consumers to spend more or to buy their product in preference to another.
Since the 1960s, advertising has become much more precise. Extensive market research has identified specific target markets based on age, gender, and income and the best way to reach them. Manufacturers and retailers of more expensive equipment tend to rely on specialist magazines whilst cheaper cameras and film and processing services, which have a broader customer base, are sold using advertising's ‘blunt instruments’—newspapers, television, and billboard posters. However, many of the techniques used by advertisers have remained unchanged over the decades. The cult of celebrity, for example, has always been a powerful weapon in the advertiser's armoury. At the beginning of the 20th century, Kodak Ltd. used the work of prominent photographers such as Frank Meadow Sutcliffe in their adverts to promote the idea of ‘What you can do with a Kodak’. David Bailey's 1977 television commercial for Olympus cameras, with its punchline ‘Who do you think you are—David Bailey?’ was hailed as a classic. Over a quarter of a century later, Bailey was brought back to appear in a new series of adverts, this time for Olympus digital cameras—plus ça change.
— Colin Harding
Bibliography
- Kenyon, D., Inside Amateur Photography (1992).
- West, N. M., Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia (2000)
