Adtech08, Kodak, Twitter and the Digital World
No, I am not there, I went last year but I am currently too busy with work to go…. That is a good thing though right?!?!
Anyways, I have been watching the @stevehall, @arielwaldman and @stephagresta tweets. I also just started following @alisamleo today, so I have been trying to keep up-to-date on what is happening there.
One of the first keynotes of the day was from Kodak’s new CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett who started in 2006 and has quickly changed Kodak (famous for not quickly evolving to digital) completely around.
According to an Adrants blog post, some of the things that Kodak is doing to keep up with the Joneses:
- An aggressive focus on digital. The Kodak Gallery, where pictures are shared and archived, boasts 70 million members. It is the second-largest social network in the world.
- Blog outreach. Jeff’s not scared of nasty press or naughty talk. It’s part of the flame-fanning. Kodak was also one of the first companies in the world to hire a female Chief Blogging Officer.
- Seizing moments of (sometimes manufactured) serendipity. He cited a moment when NASCAR heroes were photographed in Kodak hats. He talked about the Kodak Challenge on Celebrity Apprentice and the Gene Simmons controversy. Sales doubled the week following that episode.
“Hayzlett outlined the tactics Kodak has used to engineer a corporate transformation. In marketing and promotion, it has meant straddling the line between advertising and content and being willing to take some risks with the brand—if those seem to promise sales increases down the road.”
Some great thinking seems to have come from adtech this year, but of course it isn’t without it’s problems, because according to @alisamleo’s final word of the first day of adtech:
“final word: the shear lack of how the social web and its cultural constituents operate is astonishing”
So true, no matter how “old” this space may seem, it is constantly reinventing itself and we are all scrambling to keep up-to-date.
“So what is the next big thing? It’s ‘realigning organizations to execute in a digital world.’”
