Kodak Ad Cleans Up

Kodak has a cleaning lady.

Actually, it has 10 of them--and each one is nine feet tall, weighs 500 pounds and hangs from a highway billboard.

These cleaning ladies are actually hand-sculpted statues that are part of Rochester, N.Y.-based Kodak’s latest advertising campaign in California and Florida to hype its new color print film, VR-G.

The lifelike statues have been strategically placed atop highway billboards throughout the Southland--from Santa Ana to West Hollywood--to catch the eye of passing motorists. In one billboard, the statue appears to be mopping up cherry sauce oozing from a 50-foot slice of cheesecake, and in the other, she is cleaning up a porous puddle of butter that has dripped from an airplane-sized ear of corn.

The slogan: “Kodak Pours on the Color.”

Although Kodak is keeping mum about the cost of the slick campaign--created by the ad firm Rumrill-Hoyt Inc. of Rochester--it is hardly closed-mouthed about its aspirations for the billboard gimmick. “Outdoor advertising can be highly effective if the images are bright, high-quality displays,” said Bruce Wilson, Kodak’s director for film sales.

Atop each billboard, a five-foot Styrofoam bucket sits aside each of the cleaning ladies. Kodak says the campaign will last another year--assuming, of course, that none of its cleaning ladies kicks the bucket.