Polaroid goes Gaga

Canadian Business Magazine 
February 15, 2010

Anytime Lady Gaga is in the house, you can be sure of a spectacle. When she stepped onto a stage at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January, the reigning queen of pop and preposterous fashion didn’t disappoint — the sprawling sun hat the diva wore turned out to be made entirely of her own hair. But behind the glitz was perhaps an even more astonishing revelation. Lady Gaga has signed on to be the creative director at Polaroid, a company that not too long ago had been relegated to the dead brand scrap heap.

The past decade was a hellish one for Polaroid. The company that invented and popularized instant photography has gone bankrupt twice since 2001. Polaroid’s former owner turned out to be a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi fraudster. Then, with the phenomenal popularity of digital cameras obliterating demand for traditional film, the company stopped manufacturing instant cameras and film altogether.
But now Polaroid is back. The company is churning out new digital products at a feverish pace.

Polaroid is even getting back into the field of analog photography by re-releasing some of its classic instant cameras. Most important of all, Polaroid is enjoying immense buzz among artists in ways it never has before. Just this past weekend, thousands turned out for a gallery exhibit in Santa Monica featuring more than 1,850 Polaroid images by professional and amateur artists from around the world. “People were paying their respects to a wonderful medium,” says organizer Kevin Staniec.

This remarkable revival is all thanks to a unique combination of grassroots enthusiasm and the marketing savvy of private equity investors, including Toronto-based Hilco Consumer Capital, which bought the company last year.

One reason for the intensity of the movement is nostalgia. Many people who grew up snapping photos of friends and family, then shaking the print to help it dry, still have their cameras. The company estimates there are nearly one billion functioning Polaroid cameras out there.

After Hilco teamed up with Gordon Bros. of Boston to buy Polaroid for US$67 million last year, the plan was to sell a whole slate of new products, including digital and video cameras, home entertainment systems and even glasses and goggles under the Polaroid name. That’s still going ahead, and as creative director, Lady Gaga’s Haus of Gaga design team will play a role in shaping the look of new products.

It’s unlikely this hybrid of grassroots and high finance will bring Polaroid back to its glory days. But both sides are hoping there’s enough of a demand for all things Polaroid to satisfy everyone.