Has Social Media Marketing Worked For Kodak?
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Kodak, Jeffrey Hayzlett, is ubiquitous and seemingly knows everyone. Well, on Twitter. He's always tweeting about where he is and what he's doing, and he's become a fixture at something called the "140 Conference," which celebrates Twitter as a communications method.
As somewhat of a joke, I recently commented: "I didn't think it was possible to increase sales just by tweeting and speaking at every #140conf, but @JeffreyHayzlett is proving me wrong."
His almost immediate, teen-just-read-adult-book reply was interesting: " 
Power of the crowd #140conf it works. and is powerful."
Besides the grammar issues, and buzzwords, and hype in this response, what's interesting about this is asking whether it really has done Eastman Kodak Co. any good in the last year. Keep in mind, Hayzlett isn't some customer service guy in the bowels of the company – he's a corporate VP reporting to the CEO.
How has Kodak done over the last year? Just a simple glance at articles like this and this show that Kodak is a company in trouble, losing money and losing it consistently. Over the last 12 months, their stock (EK) is down. Over the past five years, the stock is way down. They've debuted new products, like the very nice Kodak zi8 camera (which I own), but all the buzz is about other companies – and presumably to some degree, sales follow the buzz.
Social media is nice and I use it a lot. But how it is tied to organizational goals is the important issue. Maybe Kodak seems a little more hip with a tweeting CMO, but that does relatively little to get me to buy a product from them; it just lays a little groundwork. Tweets like, "break-at my NYC fav diner having some smoked whitefish on crackers. Wonder if I can shove some in my pockets for later?" do little for me personally. And Hayzlett's tweetstream consists of little more than that, frankly.
Today, Hayzlett is, "heading over to do a keynote at 2010 CMO Leadership Forum #cmony will see my friend @ecava and others" Well, I hope that speaking engagements at 140 Conference, the CMO Leadership Forum, and The Apprentice are helping to sell Kodak stuff. But I doubt it.
My tweet back: "@JeffreyHayzlett Your stock went down over the last 12 months, and the company lost millions last year. Social media worked…how?"
I think that's all there is to say.
Disclaimer: I'm a graduate of the University of Rochester, which George Eastman practically built with his generosity. Kodak is based in Rochester, NY. The music school is named after Eastman.
Power of the crowd #140conf it works. and is powerful."
Besides the grammar issues, and buzzwords, and hype in this response, what's interesting about this is asking whether it really has done Eastman Kodak Co. any good in the last year. Keep in mind, Hayzlett isn't some customer service guy in the bowels of the company – he's a corporate VP reporting to the CEO.
How has Kodak done over the last year? Just a simple glance at articles like this and this show that Kodak is a company in trouble, losing money and losing it consistently. Over the last 12 months, their stock (EK) is down. Over the past five years, the stock is way down. They've debuted new products, like the very nice Kodak zi8 camera (which I own), but all the buzz is about other companies – and presumably to some degree, sales follow the buzz.
Social media is nice and I use it a lot. But how it is tied to organizational goals is the important issue. Maybe Kodak seems a little more hip with a tweeting CMO, but that does relatively little to get me to buy a product from them; it just lays a little groundwork. Tweets like, "break-at my NYC fav diner having some smoked whitefish on crackers. Wonder if I can shove some in my pockets for later?" do little for me personally. And Hayzlett's tweetstream consists of little more than that, frankly.
Today, Hayzlett is, "heading over to do a keynote at 2010 CMO Leadership Forum #cmony will see my friend @ecava and others" Well, I hope that speaking engagements at 140 Conference, the CMO Leadership Forum, and The Apprentice are helping to sell Kodak stuff. But I doubt it.
My tweet back: "@JeffreyHayzlett Your stock went down over the last 12 months, and the company lost millions last year. Social media worked…how?"
I think that's all there is to say.Disclaimer: I'm a graduate of the University of Rochester, which George Eastman practically built with his generosity. Kodak is based in Rochester, NY. The music school is named after Eastman.
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[...] has coming up. While this is entertaining for those who wish to follow someone they don’t know, blogger Mark Drapeau wonders if all the tweets are doing anything to boost sales at Kodak. Hayzlett has become what Drapeau [...]
@Mark I actually think there may be a bit more to say, having attended @JeffreyHayzlett’s presentation at the CMO Leadership Forum.
Though I definitely agree with you on the factual information you have presented, pertaining to EK’s declining financials, I think you may be looking at this a bit one-sided.
I’m not sure if you have observed/listened to any of Jeff’s recent presentations on the evolving EK brand, but there is a pretty clear theme and strategy.
First, their current goals look to target the B2B sector with eventual growth back into the consumer markets. Everything that Jeff is doing in terms of the 140Conf and the CMO Forum is building on that outright strategy.
For example, at #CMONY he had a captive audience of over 150 of us, made up of mainly VP, Director and CMO positions. As the face of Marketing for EK, I am not sure what could be more relevant than effectively communicating EK’s brand evolution to an attentive group of C-Suites. As the opening presentation, he was able to grab the audience and set the tone for the day. It will be interesting to see the compiled feedback from the forum, as I know Jeff’s presentation will be near or at the top of the list.
So, what does that mean? Jeff’s message was disseminated to C-levels representing top brands who will further disperse their learnings to their team and direct reports, and so on and so on.
You and I both know that before a person/business can act on a message, they generally must first hear it. Jeff’s use of Twitter, presenting at conferences, etc. utilizes the power of the social web to grow that dissemination of information exponentially in a way that completely fits with EK’s desired face of evolving technology, where “hip” does count for something. I would venture to say Jeff’s efforts in social media and speaking engagements will be a tremendous contributor to the potential for EK to regain market-share.
The rest is up to product offerings. Which, from what I have seen, are very compelling. I wouldn’t start shorting those EK shares yet my friend.
Thanks for the great read, please keep them coming!
Ben Smithee
@SpychResearch