Late 1969 ad in LIFE magazine for Kodak Super 8 cameras
Toronto. Between colour media, and home movies, the post war amateur photography market blossomed. It was often said that Kodak made its money selling film and other photographic consumables using their inexpensive cameras as a means to further sales.
To expand its market share, Kodak kept inventing and selling new films and cameras. A case in point was their line of Instamatic movie cameras designed to expand Super 8 film sales. The cameras were heavily promoted in advertisements such as this one on page 35 of the December 5, 1969 issue of LIFE magazine.
The idea sounds much like the Gillette razor business plan or more recently, the ink jet printer business plan: Sell the physical items (cameras, razors, printers) cheaply and make up any loss selling genuine branded disposables (film, blades, ink).
A nod of thanks to my good friend George Dunbar. George found the ad while searching out photographic history in magazines of years ago.
NB. The title of this post is a riff on the forgotten Kodak catch phrase, “A Kodak Moment” which we used before in a post title about Kodak’s early venture into DSLR territory.
