Picture Perfect

Eastman Kodak believes that innovation is critical to commercial success. Just as Eastman had a goal to make photography "as convenient as the pencil," Kodak continues to expand the ways images touch people's lives. Its product lines include digital cameras, displays, online networks and delivery systems for images, software and digital delivery media.

Out of Focus

Kodak knows its customers rely on the Internet to do product research and that they are twice as likely to research products on retail Web sites as they are on Kodak's Web site. In fact, according to Forrester Research, almost 75 percent of online shoppers conduct product research on retail Web sites and close to 70 percent of in-store shoppers use retail Web sites for product research. 

Kodak invests significant money and resources developing value-added Web marketing content for consumers, including demos that showcase specific products, buying guides that assist customers in selecting the appropriate camera or printer and educational content on how to take great pictures. Kodak felt that it was crucial to get its brand, product and educational information out to channel partners, but getting its best and most current information out to retail Web sites in a timely manner posed a significant challenge.

Kodak's partners want to provide rich product information for their sites -- after all, online product research drives both online and offline purchases. And, lack of complete information on a retail Web site can mean that consumers could delay purchases, or worse, a customer seeking additional information might go to a competitive seller. But, the variety of technologies retailers leverage made it difficult for Kodak to integrate rich product content from Kodak into retailer Web sites.

The bottom line was that the Kodak story was not being told effectively in the place where it matters most, in the channel at the point of research, where customers make purchasing decisions. Kodak wanted to allow its channel partners to focus on what they do best: selling Kodak products. Kodak needed a content syndication solution that would centralize Web product marketing content and syndicate it to channel partners without a huge IT investment.

Finding the Right Solution

After considering several solutions, Kodak chose WebCollage's Web content integration platform because it was the one solution that would allow Kodak to syndicate Kodak Web product marketing content to channel partner Web sites seamlessly, efficiently and without IT integration.

The WebCollage hosted ASP solution automatically keeps Kodak's product information and brand content up-to-date on retail Web sites by creating a pipeline between Kodak's Web site and its retailers' Web sites. There is no software for Kodak, or its retailers, to install or maintain. WebCollage takes and assembles all of the information from Kodak's Web site, customizes it to each retailer's branding and navigational requirements and seamlessly integrates it into the retailer's Web site.

WebCollage allows Kodak to syndicate its product marketing content to all of it retailers. This helps drive sales, differentiate Kodak's offerings and educate Kodak customers. Content can appear as product mini-sites that highlight a particular Kodak offering, as a brand showcase that brings together all Kodak content (category, educational and product) or even integrated directly into a retailer's search and commerce engines. Most importantly, the content is automatically customized by WebCollage to each particular retailer's requirements, allowing them to maintain their own branding and site experience.

WebCollage also provides complete reporting capabilities for Kodak, analyzing such metrics as how frequently Kodak content is accessed or when products are added to cart, so that Kodak can track the business impact of its channel marketing programs and measure the effectiveness of its marketing spend.

Visible Results

WebCollage reporting showed that more than 230,000 visitors researched more than $35 million Kodak products during the first quarter of 2006. "Not only can we establish benchmarks to gauge future performance against, but we also gain insight into how our online product marketing content is being used," says Robin Ortale, senior online merchandising manager, Kodak. "We learn how particular content types are being leveraged by consumers. This enables us to develop more effective product information for our retailers and their customers."

The Kodak marketing message is now being used consistently across channel partners. "For every person that decides to make a purchase on the Web after doing research on a retail site, four to six times as many people use this research to buy the product in a retail store," says Ortale.