Kodak marketing meister blazes through Melbourne

Jeff Hayzlett turns up the volume on a whirlwind visit to trumpet  “the greatest turnaround in business history.”

The dynamic and peripatetic Minnesotan is the business development manager and vice president of the multinational image company and he was in town to drumbeat what he believes is the amazingly successful transformation of Kodak. From addressing the company’s staff and customers to presenting to Melbourne’s marketing community as well as appearing on ABC television, where he promoted the company’s products and abilities, Hazylett delivered a high-powered performance at odds to the local industry’s usually fairly diffident presentations.

Emphasizing Kodak’s turnaround from a film-based consumer company five years ago to a dynamic business-to-business digital enterprise today, he pointed to the company’s recent multi-million dollar stock buyback as proof that the turnaround has been a success. He quoted the Financial Times headline description of Kodak’s often traumatic transformation as “the greatest turnaround in business history.”

“I believe it is. There has never been anything like it,” he said.

Over a week he delivered a much-needed morale booster to the local company, which has suffered severe staff cutbacks during the change. Attempting to put the changes into context he pointed out that 60 percent of the company’s current employees were hired within past four years. This went along with the statement that two thirds of the company’s 19 top selling products are less than three years old and that 65 percent of Kodak’s activities were now in the business-to-business space. This is in stark contrast to the consumer-based business that defined the company during the 20th century.

“Make, manage and move images and information in your life and in your business, or as I call it, M3i². That’s our business. We produce the products that you will run back into a blazing house to rescue … people’s memories and information,” he told a marketing audience at a presentation in the Malthouse Theatre at Melbourne’s South Bank. (pictured)

In an interview with Print21, (see November issue of the magazine) he predicted that the new Kodak Stream concept inkjet press unveiled at drupa will compete dollar for dollar with offset printing as well as providing the digital ability to personalise and versionalize on the fly. As an example of how ubiquitous Kodak’s presence is in the graphic arts he maintains that eight out of ten printed pages have been “touched” by Kodak technology.

“Kodak provides the DNA of the graphic arts industry. We are the biggest ambassadors for print. We went away for a while but printers are glad to see us back,” he said.

For a taste of what Kodak staffers and Melbourne marketers got this week click on here.