The incredible story of the photography business that has gone unclear

Kodak’s enormous success and massiveness ceased to be when they couldn’t adapt to the new technological age, even with the resources to do so.

March 14, 202121:52

George Eastman He never imagined the success of the company he had just created: his greatest obsession was to make photography accessible to the masses and this is how he founded Kodak, a company that would become synonymous with photography and establish itself as a world market leader, but which, being on the crest of the wave, would collapse due to failure to switch to new digital technology in time, which, paradoxically, had been developed in your laboratory.

Know the origins of Kodak, it is necessary to go back to 1888 and to settle in Rochester, in the northwest of the state of New York, in the United States. That year and there, Eastman founded this new company, out of the ashes of Eastman Dry Plate Kodak, a company dedicated to the manufacture of photographic plates.

The name Kodak, which does not make sense and is believed to have come from the babbling of a child, was chosen because it is easy to pronounce in all languages ​​and because the letter “K” was the preferred letter of its founder.

As manufacturers focused on cameras, Eastman saw that there was something everyone needed and few did: movies. A bright future awaited him as a banker, but he decided to quit his job to pursue his passion: making photography accessible to the general public.

As noted in an article in the Spanish ABC newspaper, in 1900, Eastman, who today is considered the Steve Jobs of his time, introduced his customers to the first portable camera suitable for simple amateurs, a device that would revolutionize the way to see the world.

Kodak He quickly began to manufacture photographic equipment in addition to his rolls. With his mode of production and the simplicity of his cameras, he brought the world of amateur photography within the reach of the masses in the United States. He was immediately successful in the business and it didn’t take long to come up with his famous advertising phrase: “You press the button, we do the rest”.

In 1891 he developed the first Kodak camera with an interchangeable roller, allowing change even in daylight. From that moment on he launched one innovation after another and little by little started to have head offices all over the world.

In the 20th century, he became an absolute leader by launching a different technology with each decade. One of its biggest milestones was the Instamatic series, between 1963 and 1970, of which over 50 million were sold. The innovation of the camera was that the film was protected in a cassette and was automatically transported when inserted into the camera. This machine with its system had an incredible acceptance among the amateur photographer, which is why it sold like hot cakes.

Kodak’s business was based primarily on the sale of rolls and supplies for printing photographs. They sold their cameras very low prices, making minimal margins, but then they made money when people took and printed the photos. This strategy made him unbeatable, which made him look splendid in the early 1990s.

This small Rochester company, which had become a monster with more than 140,000 employees, had become synonymous with photography and had a turnover of several million dollars a year. He was at his peak. But … there is always a brush that ruins everything.

The monster has rested on its laurels. Although it was his own engineer who developed the technology that would bring the digital camera era to life, Kodak He decided not to focus his strategy on this product for fear that his traditional business would be cannibalized. When digital cameras exploded across the world and their managers realized the grave mistake they had made in turning their backs on them, it was too late.

Kodak He tried to jump on the digital product bandwagon but was never able to adapt to the new phenomenon, he was outnumbered by much more nimble competitors and the sales collapse of his own products was so great that ‘in 2012, he declared bankruptcy. While the brand is still alive today with other companies, the success story of the company that has become synonymous with photography has come to an end.

As indicated on the El Confidencial site, the case of Kodak is often continually studied as that of a company that has dominated the market for a hundred years and yet has failed to adapt to the changes of the 21st century. “The real mistake was terrible mismanagement. The idea of ​​just focusing on one product and putting all the resources into producing cameras that were really going to waste. This is simply due to a natural fear of losing long-time buyers, of entering unfamiliar markets, ”he concludes.

More information