FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

Vintage Kodak Ads Show How Far the Giant Has Fallen (Video)

It seems impossible that a century-old company synonymous with the photo and film business could fail, but Kodak has filed for bankruptcy. It's been a slow decline for the company which never really transitioned into the digital age with much success...

It seems impossible that a century-old company synonymous with the photo and film business could fail, but Kodak is allegedly about to file for bankruptcy. It’s been a slow decline for the company which never really transitioned into the digital age with much success outside of parlaying its incredible brand recognition into selling low-end cameras and providing photo printing for a much-diminished market.

Advertisement

It hasn’t always been that way. In the fifties — and many other decades, for that matter — Kodak was king of the market, whether producing Kodachrome for professionals who still get misty-eyed at the though of it, or developing complete lineups of cameras, film, and processing for the consumer market. As suggested by these vintage ads, Kodak dominated the family market with all kinds of Brownies and Retinettes designed to make shooting photos and video easy and successful venture for the average person.

It’s odd to think that the amateur photography market Kodak helped create and made its bones on has now been been usurped largely by smartphones, whose imaging quality continues to progress to the point where a whole lot of people trying to take pictures of their friends and kids don’t see the point in lugging a separate camera around. That didn’t help Kodak, whose digital camera lineup always catered towards the casual user.

It’s easy to get nostalgic about the good old days of film, and there is something exciting about knowing that each slide counts and that you’ll have to wait until you see what you actually shot. At the same time, camera technology today has far surpassed at least the technical aspects of film (the feel is an altogether different argument), it’s wonderful to get instant results, and Kodak is certainly deserving of blame for not dealing better with a market shift that was rather obvious in coming. But looking back at Kodak’s old ads and thinking of all the happy memories they preserved, I’m hoping that Kodak will get the same loving sendoff as Polaroid did.