The advertising campaigns launched by Kodak in the early years
of snapshot photography stand at the center of a shift in American
domestic life that goes deeper than technological innovations in
cameras and film. Before the advent of Kodak advertising in 1888,
writes Nancy Martha West, Americans were much more willing to allow
sorrow into the space of the domestic photograph, as evidenced by
the popularity of postmortem photography in the mid-nineteenth
century. Through the taking of snapshots, Kodak taught Americans to
see their experiences as objects of nostalgia, to arrange their
lives in such a way that painful or unpleasant aspects were
systematically erased.
West looks at a wide assortment of Kodak's most popular
inventions and marketing strategies, including the "Kodak Girl,"
the momentous invention of the Brownie camera in 1900, the "Story
Campaign" during World War I, and even the Vanity Kodak Ensemble, a
camera introduced in 1926 that came fully equipped with
lipstick.
At the beginning of its campaign, Kodak advertising primarily
sold the fun of taking pictures. Ads from this period celebrate the
sheer pleasure of snapshot photography--the delight of handling a
diminutive camera, of not worrying about developing and printing,
of capturing subjects in candid moments. But after 1900, a crucial
shift began to take place in the company's marketing strategy. The
preservation of domestic memories became Kodak's most important
mission. With the introduction of the Brownie camera at the turn of
the century, the importance of home began to replace leisure
activity as the subject of ads, and at the end of World War I,
Americans seemed desperately to need photographs to confirm
familial unity.
By 1932, Kodak had become so intoxicated with the power of its
own marketing that it came up with the most bizarre idea of all,
the "Death Campaign." Initiated but never published, this campaign
based on pictures of dead loved ones brought Kodak advertising full
circle. Having launched one of the most successful campaigns in
advertising history, the company did not seem to notice that
selling a painful subject might be more difficult than selling
momentary pleasure or nostalgia.
Enhanced with over 50 reproductions of the ads themselves, 16 of
them in color, Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia vividly illustrates
the fundamental changes in American culture and the function of
memory in the formative years of the twentieth century.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!