"New Kodachrome", why didn't they? ...

dmr

dmr

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I was doing some thinking last night -- yes, dangerous I know.

Big Yellow has over 1/2 of a century of equity built up in the brand name Kodachrome, and it seems to me that the various Rhodes Scholar MBA marketroid types that Big Yellow obviously employs would like to retain that equity instead of flushing it down the hopper by "retiring" the brand.

I would think that an obvious way to salvage the equity while retiring the current K14 film would be to introduce something along the line of a "New Kodachrome", maybe branded something like "Kodachrome-E" which would actually be an E6 film with colors somewhat restrained as compared to the current Ekta/Elitechrome offerings.

Any thoughts on this one, gang? 🙂
 
dmr said:
I was doing some thinking last night -- yes, dangerous I know.

Big Yellow has over 1/2 of a century of equity built up in the brand name Kodachrome, and it seems to me that the various Rhodes Scholar MBA marketroid types that Big Yellow obviously employs would like to retain that equity instead of flushing it down the hopper by "retiring" the brand.

I would think that an obvious way to salvage the equity while retiring the current K14 film would be to introduce something along the line of a "New Kodachrome", maybe branded something like "Kodachrome-E" which would actually be an E6 film with colors somewhat restrained as compared to the current Ekta/Elitechrome offerings.

Any thoughts on this one, gang? 🙂
Click to expand...


You're hired w/ a great idea.

Problem is the entire film industry is hanging by a thread.
 
Yeah, I doubt slide film in general is selling very well these days. Apparently most of what Kodak is selling is large format, specialized stuff. Consumer film, especially slide film, has got to be a very small bit of their film business.
 
Kodachrome with an E-Series processing would require the emulsion to be completely different from what the world has known for over 70 years.

It would be like Ford making a new SUV and calling it a Mustang.
 
Or maybe like the New Coke, where the whole country rises up in protest to get the old stuff back.

Kodak could then re-introduce Kodachrome, but secretly substitute HFCS for sugar. 🙂
 
The "New Coke" cans were labeled as "New Coke". Then there was Coke Classic.

I like Cherry Coke.

Would that be Kodachrome "A"?

But- the Kodachrome Emulsion required a drastically different processing method than Ektachrome. I've got two Kodak instructional booklets from the mid-1940s, one for "Kodachrome" and the ohter for "Ektachrome". Beautiful color plates in them.

I guess it's too late to use my Kodachrome in the fridge. It's K-11 process. And it's Double-8.
 
From a branding perspective I always thought Kodak had missed a trick by not using Kodachrome as a generic name for their slide film - a la Fujichrome - with different names for different sub-types. Too late now.
 
dmr said:
I was doing some thinking last night -- yes, dangerous I know.

Big Yellow has over 1/2 of a century of equity built up in the brand name Kodachrome, and it seems to me that the various Rhodes Scholar MBA marketroid types that Big Yellow obviously employs would like to retain that equity instead of flushing it down the hopper by "retiring" the brand.

I would think that an obvious way to salvage the equity while retiring the current K14 film would be to introduce something along the line of a "New Kodachrome", maybe branded something like "Kodachrome-E" which would actually be an E6 film with colors somewhat restrained as compared to the current Ekta/Elitechrome offerings.

Any thoughts on this one, gang? 🙂
Click to expand...

You´re totally right. The Kodak management seems totally ignorant about film. Thats a another reason to buy Fuji instead. Velvia was and is better anyway.
 
If Kodak had tried to use the Kodachrome name for an E6 film, they'd have been crucified for betrayal. Quite rightly, in my view.

I'm pretty sure that yhere were actually Kodachrome 'minilabs' intrpduced a few photokinas back, but they were too late: the film was already dying. There was no way that a Kodachrome process (sequential selective exposure to coloured light, and dyes added in the processing baths) could ever have been adapted to a conventional minilab.

As for Velvia being a better film; well, let's be polite and say that there's no accounting for taste. The current version is better than the old, but that's not saying much.

Tashi delek,

R.
 
dmr said:
I was doing some thinking last night -- yes, dangerous I know.

Big Yellow has over 1/2 of a century of equity built up in the brand name Kodachrome, and it seems to me that the various Rhodes Scholar MBA marketroid types that Big Yellow obviously employs would like to retain that equity instead of flushing it down the hopper by "retiring" the brand.

I would think that an obvious way to salvage the equity while retiring the current K14 film would be to introduce something along the line of a "New Kodachrome", maybe branded something like "Kodachrome-E" which would actually be an E6 film with colors somewhat restrained as compared to the current Ekta/Elitechrome offerings.

Any thoughts on this one, gang? 🙂
Click to expand...

I agree. Kodachrome is a household name, even to non-photographers.

I think Kodachrome-E is brilliant. Don't know why they didn't do it.

Besides, Kodak had a habit of recycling certain names. Search the 'bay for Ektra cameras and you'll find the original one from the 40s, and the Ektra-1 camera from the late 70s, which was a 110 camera.

There's the Kodak Bullet Camera (from the 30s or so) and the Brownie Bullet from some time later (I think). (To me, the Bullet Camera looked like the love child of a Bantam Special and the Medalist. But perhaps I've been thinking about it too much....)
 
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