The beginning for Kodak

I've been sifting through a load of old print ads today, many dating back from the 1850's! Some are hilarious, the copy they used is priceless.. one of my favourites for Palmolive Soap:

"Palmolive's Beauty Plan brings exciting complexion loveliness" ...

What the! Also, Lose weight with Aids!? Gold!

Haha anyway, I came across a whole load of them for Kodak, which reminded me of a page in one of Paul Arden's books.. I read both of his bestselling paperbacks, "Whatever you think, think the opposite", and "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be".

Freaking amazing books, I think they should be supplementary textbooks for creative courses at uni!



In one of my favourite pages, he tells us about the beginning of Kodak as a brand:

"In 1881, George Eastman, a junior clerk, left his safe job in a local bank to start a photographic company.

But here is the interesting part..
Seven years later, he changed its name to "Kodak", an odd choice, since it was meaningless and nobody in those days gave random names to serious products.

Eastman's reasons for choosing the name were:
firstly, that it was short;
secondly, that it was not capable of mispronunciation; and,
thirdly, that it could not be associated with anything else.

Even today, corporations cannot think like that.
Only entrepreneurs can."

(Source: "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be" - Paul Arden)