• Corporate Humanity is Viral

    Posted on January 5th, 2007 by and currently 9 commenting.

    This internal video from Kodak has gone viral. Why? It is blatantly “safe for work” and its content is a corporate mission which, unless you are Steve Jobs, does not usually generate a lot of mainstream interest.
    The sight of a corporate giant willing to drop their slick veneer, laugh at themselves and mock their own failures appears so, well, human that I found myself not being able to tear myself away and wanting to write about it here. Consumers are inundated with so many sanitized PR messages, that genuine discussion of a company – warts and all – is outrageous in its own right.

    A few months ago, we made a very risky suggestion to a corporate giant with a massive image problem. We suggested that they say “sorry” for the customers they had upset and take some public actions to begin to make ammends. We were told that admitting wrongdoing was not in keeping with their corporate brand. This Kodak video becoming so popular might help other corporations muster their courage to admit their flaws, cut the perfect PR BS and talk like real people, and take a step in forming real relationships with customers. Those are the companies that fascinate me and that I will choose to do business with.

  • http://lgbusinesssolutions.typepad.com/solutions_to_grow_your_bu/ Lewis Green

    Virginia,

    Sorry to be blunt, but the client who can’t admit mistakes is an idiot, their customers know it, and the brand suffers because of it.

  • http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/ johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)

    Geez Lewis … that’s a stauch stance. Unfortunately there are too few companies that are confident enough in what they do to admit making mistakes. I gotta give Kodak credit here for taking their job seriously but themselves lightly.

    Advertisers try to capture my attention with :30 second spots. But Kodak’s 3:34 minute video captivated me. Kudos to Kodak.

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  • http://www.communityguy.com Jake McKee

    Have to agree with Lewis on this one, although maybe not quite so harshly :)

    I’d really love to be able to explore that thinking a bit more…

    Unnamed client: “Admitting wrongdoing was not in keeping with our corporate brand”

    Me: “So you’re saying your brand is about overly glossy, unrealistic presentation?”

    Oh man, that could be fun!

  • Christy

    I can’t imagine working with a company that actually thinks it is perfect. Or, that by just ignoring mistakes that they will go away.

    This move by Kodak is fabulous! I “got it” when the speaker referenced Advantix and hiding in a cave from the digital revolution. As a customer, it stirred loyalty to the brand. As a public relations specialist, I had to stand up and applaud. And let everyone else in the office laugh at me as I did.

  • Vince

    Brilliant…. I don’t know why they WOULDN’T want to circulate it.

  • Vince

    Also, some thoughts to add. Yes, no company is perfect, especially Kodak. And yes, now, that video is funny. We can laugh at it in all the right ways. However, had they produced something similar during the time in which Kodak had to perform massive layoffs, it probably wouldn’t have gone over so well. Let’s not forget all the pain and suffering that Kodak itself, as well as nearly all of its employees, had to endure in order to be at the point they’re at right now (poising to be a leader of digital). So yes, it’s well done. But do those that have been laid off (some eons ago) by Kodak laugh at that video?

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  • dopplerdave

    Give Kodak tons of credit for even doing this. To get management to agree with doing this is the first obstacle. For a major brnad like Kodak this is a significant deal. Most companies are afraid of participating at all in Web 2.0. Congrats to Kodak.