Shaking Polaroid

Before this site existed, I did an occasional email newsletter called The Journal of Murketing. (I still do an email newsletter, actually, but it’s different than the old one.) In a December 2003 edition of the old J of M, I had this item:

[ ] The current hit song “Hey Ya,” by Outkast, and its video, are probably the best boost for the not-so-cutting-edge Polaroid brand in ages. “Shake it like a Polaroid picture,” goes a key lyric, and the video includes scenes of mass Polaroid-waving. Even when this kind of thing happens organically, you can count on branders to pounce, and Adweek reports that Polaroid marketers are now developing (chortle) a scheme “to build on the song’s popularity and channel that into a guerrilla campaign.” The idea is to get Outkast to use the cameras onstage, and to put cameras “into the hands of ‘Polarazzi.'” This fictitious class of people is of course made up of celebrities and under-30 “trendsetters.” “The plan,” writes Adweek, “is to hit high-profile events on New Year’s Eve as part of ‘The Polaroid Ambush.'” And its goal is to get consumers to use the cameras in “real, natural ways,” which apparently is always something that’s best accomplished through just this sort of transparent gimmickry.

I guess this scheme did not rebuild Polaroid after all. As you know, the company recently said it would stop making the last iterations of its instant film. (Also: A couple months after the above, Polaroid put out a statement saying actually you should not shake a Polaroid picture: “Shaking or waving can actually damage the image.”)

Anyway: Will you miss Polaroid? Brand Autopsy is asking.