Kodak Ends Olympic Sponsorship After Beijing Games

Eastman Kodak Co. has announced that it will end its long-standing sponsorship of the Olympics after the 2008 Beijing Games end next August. Kodak has been involved with the Olympics for more than 100 years and has been one of 12 "top tier" sponsors for more than two decades, but now they say the company's long-term market strategy is moving away from film products to digital products.

Kodak said the move is not out of financial consideration but a change to "get closer to our customers," a company spokesperson told Reuters. "Our new business strategy requires us to reassess our marketing tactics as well, and adapt them to changing market conditions and evolving customer behavior," said Kodak director of brand management Elizabeth Noonan.

The Beijing summer games will reach an estimated 4 billion television viewers, more than 1 billion more than those who watched the Athens games in 2004.

For several years Kodak has been moving away from film and cameras toward a product line that features solely digital products and consumer printing. During past summer Olympic games Kodak ran a media center for professional photographers who had Olympic credentials where film was processed, images were edited, scanned, or printed, and a medical clinic was available for diagnostic imaging to treat injured athletes.

Kodak would not tell Reuters how much they paid to be a top-tier corporate sponsor, but analysts on Madison Ave. have estimated that level of sponsorship may cost as much as $55 million.

Kodak has been involved with the summer Olympics on some level since the first modern games in Athens in 1896, the International Olympic Committee's marketing staff said.

News reports detailing Kodak¹s transformation over the years, since the time they were a chemical and film company who seemed to be caught unprepared for the digital revolution and lagged far behind in developing and marketing digital products to a changed world, has cut more than 30,000 jobs and closed plants around the world while their stock price stayed depressed.
Provided by NPPA.