Polaroid Brand Revival: Mobile App Execution

Our team presented a brand revival of Polaroid for our Creative Strategy class at FIU; graduate-level. We did a situation and SWOT analysis through secondary research. We found that the core issues Polaroid might be facing were instead of being the innovators they had fallen into following in digital age. In addition, although their brand has recognition, their new products do not, no one really knows of their recent activities. From here we designed a qualitative research with a combination of one-on-one interviews and paper questionnaires. Taking the resulting consumer insights, we weaved them into the creative brief which holds our creative strategy. In this blog, I will be explaining the creative strategy of our campaign, and the rationale behind copy and design of the mobile application channel.

Creative strategy

We considered the stage the brand may be at in business, having undergone two bankruptcies, and decided it was mature with some mileage. The consumer insight we gathered from primary research points to a fond, nostalgic attitude towards the brand, a recognition of the brand but not the new products that have a blend of analog and digital. In addition, with the onset of the digital world, instant film is seen as less immediate and relevant.

With all of the above in consideration, we used the “Frame and Reframe” ideation technique to brainstorm our creative strategy. If we could reposition Polaroid in a way to address the specific needs and wants of today’s target, the brand may gain a fresh impression. We reflected on Polaroid’s two strengths: the brand truth of instant hard copy and digital combined, and the nostalgia stirring power of its iconic name.  We probed at the needs and wants of the target: people associate Polaroid films with special events and moments shared with special people in their lives. As much as they love the convenience of digital, they also yearn for the quality of precipitating an intangible moment into a physical print instantaneously.

Copywriting

The unifying tagline of our campaign reads like this:

_____ gets a Polaroid, the others get a jpeg.

Weighing the value of analog and digital in one sentence, the copy aimed to tip towards analog as the element of higher value. The tagline carries the idea of Polaroid being associated with special moments with a special someone; you can give digital copies by numbers to all sorts of people, acquaintances, etc but a Polaroid, is a singular item, that you might keep for yourself, a memory’s keepsake, or give as a gift to someone close. We chose to say Polaroid instead of “print” or “instant photo” because their iconic name already leads the category of instant film, and sparks nostalgia. The unequal half, “jpeg” is the catchy, humorous part; who wants to get just a jpeg? But it also indicates the issue digital age might stir; the distance in digital communication vs. actual physical communication.

Art Direction & Copy for Mobile Application

I specifically strategized and designed the copy and graphics of the mobile App execution for this project. The mobile App game was designed to build product awareness through a fun and interactive game. We wanted to give potential consumers a virtual taste of the newer products and the environment they may be utilized in. We also wanted to drive home the point that sometimes analog holds higher value than digital. The game allows players to share on social media, which works to stimulate curiosity and engagement from people on their social network. This is how the game works: it’s basically like an “I Spy” treasure hunt with a checklist of items to capture, camera choice, and character choice (may personalize with player’s own face). Once you choose a destination, the game takes you on a journey where you touch items that are flying past you to capture digital files of them. You are aided with a toolbox which specifies the products features, and a jpeg archive of all the captures you’ve made. At the end of a game, you’re allowed to turn one of the jpegs into a Polaroid to share on social media.

We kept the colors consistent with the brand’s classic black and rainbow spectrum. The black background of the interfaces has a soft, leather texture, as if one was looking inside a vintage camera bag. Colorful, high definition, and dynamic destinations were chosen to give people an interactive feel of what the XS 100 could potentially capture as a lifestyle video camera. We crystalized the original diamond Polaroid logo for the “Xpedition game” edition, to show that it was a sort of treasure hunt for virtual photo captures. We also used Polaroid’s well-recognized white frame to border the chosen image for a social media shareable copy.

The rationale behind the name “Xpedition” lies on the intent to evoke a sense of action and adventure in a visual journey. “Choose your eye” is simple and to the point, and reflects RPG games where you choose your weapon or tool of choice to aid in the level you’re on. “XS 100 Chosen” creates an epic tone and builds anticipation, but also stays minimalistic, kind of like the celebrated, one-step camera. Lastly, we added the tagline on the portion of the white frame for captions along with their original diamond logo. In this way, potential consumers who see the photo on social media receive exposure to the advertising message in a subtle manner.

Conclusion

Polaroid is too involved within our collective conscious as a brand to fade into oblivion. The original spark we saw in this older brand, what had originally brought us to choose it for our project, was a starting point that helped us see through to the challenge, insights, strategy, and solution to this particular brand.The revival project has been an exciting and eye-opening exercise; we learned to apply the concepts and tools we’ve learned through our FIU graduate courses and Miami Ad School portfolio classes to create a blueprint of resuscitating and bringing back a brand to life.