Kodak director and vice president of commercial marketing Chris Payne said that the move was not simply a cost cutting exercise for the company, which is focused on emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013, but was the result of strategic discussions internally and also with its customers.
"It’s not about saving costs, we’ll still be spending the money on customer engagement, we’ll just be spending our dollars in a different way – we’re still focussed on how best to connect to our customers and you’re seeing the same broad statements from a lot of vendors," said Payne.
Kodak’s decision follows Xerox’s withdrawal just before Christmas, which itself came after HP decided not to exhibit in the summer.
As well as withdrawing from Ipex, where Kodak had booked 1,600sqm, Payne said the company was looking to "significantly reduce its participation in conventional trade shows" across the board, including the US, although he stressed that Drupa was "a little bit different" and that the company saw it as an important technology showcase that it would continue to participate in.
He added that the company would also look at shows in vertical and emerging markets on a case-by-case basis.
However, Payne said that instead of conventional trade shows, such as Ipex, Kodak would focus on developing and building on its Graphic Users Associations customer events in the US, China and Europe as well as its own demonstration facilities. Other areas the company will enhance will be functions such as Kodak-hosted peer-to-peer "thought leadership" roundtables, its "Kodak’s Partner Place" online community and personalised customer publications in print and online.
"Meeting with customers remains very important, but what’s really important for our customers is not so much looking and testing equipment at trade shows anymore, what they want is a two way dialogue about where their business is going, how they going to get there and how we as vendors can help them," said Payne.
Payne added that while Kodak would not itself be on the show floor of London's Excel at next year’s Ipex, it was likely that Kodak equipment would still be there on partner’s booths and that the company may be involved in other ways. A suggestion welcomed by Informa print group and event director Trevor Crawford.
"Kodak may have chosen not to participate in the usual way, but we continue to discuss the ideal engagement for them with Ipex in 2014, more will be clear next week with further announcements," he said.
For more, see next week’s PrintWeek.
