“Good Enough” Not Enough

Recently, a friend of mine walked by a luxury boutique in New York City. In the front window was a large display of a super model/TV personality. She related to me the following:  “I don’t remember which model and I don’t remember what she was modeling. What I remember is the large two-foot blotch on the upper edge of the print.  Not the highly paid model. Not the luxury item for sale. Not, to think of it, the brand selling it.“

Paco Underhill, one of the industry’s foremost experts on retailing and founder of Envirosell, said “Today, the photograph in retail is everywhere—silk-screened images in windows, lifestyle graphics in the aisles, flat screens mounted from ceilings, projections on the floor, and the incorporation of images onto packaging. The creative drive has been focused on making good stuff look great.” http://click.si.edu/Story.aspx?story=787

Make good stuff look great. When I heard the story above about what should have been a gorgeous display instead tainted by the quality of the media on which it’s printed, I’m even more committed to what we’re doing at Kodak.  In recent years, lower quality display materials have entered the market, and as marketing budgets have shrunk, some brands saw using these “good enough” materials as a viable cost-saving alternative.  “Good enough” does not create great. And in this case, it created just the opposite.

We recently introduced our new KODAK PROFESSIONAL ENDURA Transparency Display Media to the market, based on the fundamental belief that our customers in this space require media that creates the most visually effective output – for large displays (such as trade-show stands and booths), in-store point-of-purchase materials, and indoor transit displays (airports, subways).

Our labs partners and specifiers use Kodak Display media for some of the world’s most well-known brands because they know that no matter where in the world an image is printed, our media ensures consistency and the preservation of the quality those brands represent. Dominick Dunne, COO of Splash Worldwide, a technology based communications agency, said this when asked why he recommends Kodak media to his clients.

We recommend Kodak media because it is the most consistent and has the highest quality. In most offset printing applications, there are industry specifications that enable Splash to show a digital proof and know that no matter what press they will print on the printer can match the proof. The best examples of this are SWOP and GRACOL. No specifications exist in the out-of-home or in-store production business. By standardizing on Kodak media, Splash has created a de-facto standard.

In an era where competition for consumer attention and ultimately dollars is fierce, we want to make sure that our customers have the best output to contribute to their success. That means consistency.  It means reliability. It means high quality. Our R&D continues in photographic paper because to succeed in a competitive market, our customers deserve, and frankly, need more than “good enough.”