Kodak marketing 26-28' Digital photo frames Essay

Kodak marketing 26-28' Digital photo frames - Essay Example The tools employed will be the SWOT analysis, Pestels analysis and the five forces model. The analysis will lead to the discovery of marketing problems which will be solved using finding a new target market and proper positioning in that market. The paper will conclude with a market research plan to evaluate the success of the new market. This will be done for the 20-26 inch digital photo frames. Company background EastMan Kodak is a company which started in Newyork in the year 1880. The company presented the first camera in the hands of consumers in the year 1888 with the slogan "you press the button, we do the rest". Therefore the main aim of the company was to make photography as convenient as a pencil. (Kodak) The company was largely successful in doing so and developed different products for different market segments. The company currently operates in four segments which are photography, commercial imaging, health imaging and components. Its expertise lies in both types of imagi ng: traditional and digital, and it provides products, services and solutions for its customers in these arenas. Kodak tries to outperform its competitors in both digital technology and traditional forms of photography and realizes the threat which development of digital imaging presents to manufacturers and developers of 35mm. Thus its ultimate goal should be to become a market leader in digital imaging as it was in film based photography previously and to present such products in traditional imaging which are better than traditional products. The success of Eastman Kodak was due to an amalgamation of its inventive and marketing genius and more efforts like this are needed to regenerate this photography icon. The marketing expertise which made Kodak a household name was its catchy slogan along with the differential product mix which the company offered. By the end of the twentieth century Kodak had developed markets in France, Germany, Mexico, Brazil and the United Kingdom and its products were marketed by subsidiary companies in more than 150 countries. Kodak had virtually no competitors from its inception till the arrival of Fuji which was followed by Polaroid. The advent of new competitors coupled with the fact that the photographic film was becoming a less popular way of photography led to the company facing problems. By 2005, the company's share price had fallen considerably and the demand for its cameras and film rolls had also decreased considerably. The analog businesses were sliding irreversibly and Kodak tried becoming the digital forerunner. It closed its paper and printing plants, laid off jobs and went on a $3 billion shopping spree to gain technological expertise and resources for new product developments. (Eastman Kodak post 3Q profit) With the development of new products and the advent of new technology, new markets will have to be found and the products are to be rightfully targeted to those markets. Since the introduction of digital photo fr ames, the need for printing and processing a digital photo has been reduced as the image can be directly views. The proposed product is new as it is very large in size thus replacing the frames displayed in family houses. Audit Pest analysis Political environment The photography and imaging market faces a few challenges in the legal arena namely patent infringement issues and privacy issues. With high research budget and development it is very much possible that Kodak might use some other company's technology or its new technology might be used by its competitors leading to patent