Kodak will not be participating in IPEX 2014, and in turn has instead decided to channel its investment in tradeshows into customer engagement activities. With the recent announcement, the company has followed tune with other companies such as HP, Heidelberg, Landa, Agfa, Xerox and Komori.
Recently, Kodak was seen adopting measure like selling its patents and concentrating on growth areas in an effort to emerge from bankruptcy. In a statement released by the company, it said that the decision was made to reallocate its marketing investment and not as a mean to save money.
The statement by Chris Payne, Kodak director and vice president of commercial marketing, said, “As the marketing landscape shifts, Kodak and other major suppliers are taking a different approach to connect with customers more often and more effectively. After much discussion with our customers and Kodak teams around the world, we have altered the marketing mix to include a higher number of customer engagement activities to help them make decisions. To that end, Kodak will not exhibit at IPEX 2014 in London and will significantly reduce its participation in conventional trade shows.”
The customer engagement activities Kodak will focus on instead include the Graphic Users Association (GUA) in North America, China, Japan and Europe, the Kodak Technology Demo Centres, located in markets around the world, industry thought leadership forums and Kodak-hosted events, and the company’s recently launched ONE, a segment-based, personalised on-line newsletter program.
Kodak also says it will maintain a print-based marketing campaign mix, with the company set to use its own print resources to send personalised direct mail to its customers.
In a release published in early January, IPEX said, “The findings of our own research, which is to be published in the form of a white paper this month – indicate that there is still a real appetite from European PSPs to engage with multiple digital suppliers in the exhibition environment. We believe that an event such as IPEX has a significant role to play in the research, information gathering and buying process for printers, making it a vital sales, promotion and customer engagement platform for suppliers targeting these buyers.”
