ilford photo
“…all you have to do to win our business is come up with a more artful expression of black and white photography than Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams, and Richard Avedon did for Kodak,” smiled the CMO for Ilford…
COPY: Intriguing. Involving. Indelible. Ilford. Nobody’s wilder about black and white than we are.
COPY: Inventive. Irrepressible. Illuminating. Ilford. Nobody sees more into black and white than we do.
COPY: Interactive. Introspective. Inseparable. Ilford. Nobody knows the philosophy of black and white like we do.
“The best campaign I’ve ever seen for B&W, maybe all photography.”
– Paul Hope, Director, Worldwide Marketing, ILFORD
“Jan is a seriously creative person – genius, really…he and the agency turned our fortunes around by helping us compete head on with Kodak….he saw something in us, in our customers, that nobody else did and made a deeper connection with photographers — without one photo… amazing. ”
– Laurie Macomber, U.S. Marketing Director, ILFORD
Exec Summary
Category Thinking: Kodak is art.
New Insight: Photographers’ appreciation for art is not brand-related and goes deeper than the photographic image itself.
New Position: Ilford is B&W. You are the artist. You create the art.
Result: 0% to 3% market share in first year. Established Ilford as black-and-white expert, the b&w brand. Newfound respect and genuine relationship with customers and the trade. Positioned Ilford as authentic b&w artist tool, the insurgent next leader without the old big-brother corporate arrogance.
Full Case Study
Situation: A name brand in Europe for black-and-white film, paper, and equipment, Ilford had little brand recognition among professionals in the United States. The biggest problem? A competitor named Kodak with a $19 billion revenue stream, ad budgets in the hundreds of millions, and legendary photographers such as Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams, and Richard Avedon touting the Kodak name.
Category Thinking: Kodak is art.
New Insight: Nobody has a more colorful take on life than b&w photographers. Photographers’ appreciation for art is not brand-related and goes deeper than the photographic image itself. Observe, and absorb, a real conversation with them, and you’ll find that they actually distrust the notion of a Big Corporate Brand telling them what beautiful black and white is, out of a yellow box nonetheless. A deeper look into this iconoclastic soul reveals that they are so creative, so independent, so self-motivated, that you don’t need to, don’t dare, dictate creativity to them…but, instead, let them make their own creative judgment of which brand to trust for their b&w work, their art.
New Position: Ilford is B&W. You are the artist. You create the art.
Result: 0% to 3% market share in first year. Established Ilford as black-and-white expert, the b&w brand. Newfound respect and genuine relationship with customers and the trade. Positioned Ilford as authentic b&w artist tool, the insurgent next leader without the old big-brother corporate arrogance.
Solution: A way to break or even pause the professional photographer’s Kodak habit. A way to fuel their burning passion for b&w art while disconnecting them from Kodak. A way to gain trust and win trial. ReImagine a campaign that authenticates b&w photographers’ innate courage and that completely, confidently gives them credit for being the artist, for seeing beauty and value in their own imaginations. A campaign daring in itself: breaking ground in the photo industry by offering not a single photograph, yet communicating photographic expertise more powerfully, more empowering than any other brand.
