Happy Birthday to the KODAK Trademark

2/22/2012KODAK may be the greatest trademark ever created.? It?s short, and it is easy to pronounce, with few variations.? It is a word that can be pronounced fairly accurately in other languages by non-English speakers. The United States Patent and Trademark Office issued KODAK its first trademark registration 100 years ago this week.?

Kodak was the original social media company. It provides a great lesson in the power of trademarks and branding.? While the Facebook IPO dominates the headlines (Blog of February 15, 2012), less focus has been given to the image of the KODAK brand, now fading and curling at the edges.?

A century before Facebook made it commonplace for people to share the moments of their lives, Kodak was finding ways to share images from our lives. They called themselves ?America?s storyteller.?? Kodak invented the concept of posting signs at scenic and tourist locations, designating ideal picture-taking spots. ?Everyday language used the term ?Kodak moment? to describe, at first sincerely and later ironically, any time that would capture emotion, feeling, or beauty.?

We all know that business schools will be studying Kodak?s decline for decades to come The company once was highly profitable, flush with cash, and one of the worshiped Dow 30. It?s not as if they didn?t try to leverage their brand into other related fields like imaging, photocopies and chemicals.? But the world?s original social media company did a pretty darn good job for a long time. Maybe technology just overcame their product.?

I would suspect the KODAK trademark will still be an invaluable asset in photography-related areas.? You would think that 125 years of goodwill would be worth a fortune, if not to Kodak, then to someone. But Kodak?s poor cousin Polaroid already fell victim to digital photography a long time ago.? The POLAROID trademark remains around on different things, but even with all the great goodwill and emotion tied into the word ?Polaroid,? no one has been able to find a way to revive it on another next-big-product. It would be tempting to say that a great trademark doesn?t count for much if the company can?t stay in business.? But it is almost impossible to underestimate the value that those trademarks had to the success of their companies for so many decades.? At one time, Polaroid was simply synonymous for an instant photograph, like ?give me a Polaroid of your car bumper,? or ?she sent him a Polaroid of what???

What is the best lesson about the KODAK trademark? George Eastman, Kodak?s founder, invented the word because he liked the strong sound of the letter ?K? at the beginning and end. The more distinct a trademark, the stronger it will be, and the more immune from attack. A distinctive, unique, coined word is also going to be less likely to get you accidentally involved in disputes with other companies who use a similar name or similar words.?

You never want your trademark used generically, which is where the product and the name are synonymous, because then the mark becomes used as a noun. A lot of trademarks suffered that fate. Words like ?escalator?, ?aspirin? and ?videotape? started off as trademarks. You become a victim of your own success.? Xerox was going to suffer that fate at one point, but in the 1960?s and 70s they started to publish ads to remind people that XEROX was a registered trademark to identify a particular brand of copier.?

While Facebook is being hailed as a great global social media company and seems poised to absorb money faster than a BOUNTY paper towel, the world?s first great social media company is on life support and living in a bubble.? But that is not for lack of a great trademark.? Looking at KODAK as a trademark, it is hard to say that this great, strong trademark was not responsible for the product?s legendary success. Attention-getting yellow and red packaging was used consistently over decades.? These built a great, strong brand.? Share your pictures, share your life.? It didn?t start with Facebook.

The word ?Kodak? has meant ?memories? to generations. Back in the late 1980s and early 90s, I owned two retail drug stores. Kodak was big business for us. There was a picture-taking occasion virtually every month of the year, except maybe August, but August had summer vacations. Kodak marks had an iron grip on the photo business. When competition heated up in the photo developing market, Kodak advertised to consumers that they should be sure their priceless pictures were developed on nothing less than KODAK paper, convincing KODAK disciples to look for its name to insure that the prints of their photos would keep it all in the KODAK family. The emotional attachment to the KODAK brand linked Kodak to its customers.

Granted, Kodak never was a one-trademark company. They created and used hundreds of names on a variety of products, from ACCUMIX to ZORCAINE, but the company has revolved around the KODAK brand. A unique term is the trademark lawyer?s dream. It is easier to register, easier to protect, and easier to defend.? KODAK is not like FACEBOOK, that?s for sure; it doesn?t tell you anything about the product or service.? As a strong legal trademark, it?s about as good as it gets. KODAK has magic as a trademark. Even the strongest swimmers can?t swim against the tide forever. Maybe Facebook should use some of its upcoming IPO fortune to buy Kodak. I can just picture it.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jesscollen/2012/02/22/happy-birthday-to-the-kodak-trademark/

Source: http://www.pmflegal.com/blog/index.php/2012/02/23/happy-birthday-to-the-kodak-trademark/

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