Repurposing photographic technology into cosmetics: the Astalift skincare brand (2007)

Re-reading a fading technology as an asset in another market

The heart of this decision lies in the fact that, rather than discarding the technology of a fading business, Fujifilm re-read it as an asset for an entirely different market. Photographic film and skincare are products from separate worlds that never sit side by side on a store shelf. Yet Fujifilm did not overlook the facts that the raw material of film is collagen, and that the antioxidant and nanotechnology techniques used to keep colours from fading carry over to the care of skin. The distinctive feature of this decision is the imaginative reach that bridged the loss of the core business to a new line of trade through a single move — taking inventory of its technological assets.

That said, a chemical maker was by no means guaranteed success in cosmetics, a consumer product. To challenge a mature market where specialist majors compete, armed only with a story about technology, ran no small risk of being buried. Even so, Astalift embodied technology-transfer diversification as an actual product, and became one step on the way to the later life-sciences business. What does a company possess, and in which market can it put that to use — the question posed by a company that had lost photography, its mainstay, remains rich in suggestion for thinking about what one can leave behind when a business’s life runs out.