SUCCESSFUL STRATEGY TO INCREASE AWARENESS:Advalue:POLAROID European campaign

Polaroid discovered that sales growth was being stunted by its stuffy and irrelevant image, and briefed Bartle Bogle Hegarty to devise a 20m pan-European push. Could it rejuvenate the brand? Plus David Willing of Guild reviews the strategy

Polaroid Europe appointed Bartle Bogle Hegarty in December 1994 when total European sales looked good – primarily because of the extraordinary growth in both camera and film sales in Russia. Over the previous two years, the newness of instant photography technology and the appeal of photographs you could develop without fear of anyone viewing them during processing, led to sales soaring in Russia.

When the Russian effect was removed from Polaroid’s European sales, sales in Western Europe were shown to have remained flat over the previous five years.

Polaroid is the world’s only successful producer of instant cameras and film. BBH’s first task was therefore to establish exactly what was holding business back.

A combination of qualitative research conducted among Polaroid users and lapsed users, and informal research conducted by BBH, found two key obstacles to growth: people did not see the relevance of Polaroid instant photography, and Polaroid’s image was universally perceived to be old-fashioned.

Research showed that, unlike other cameras, Polaroid is not about recording occasions for posterity. It is about enhancing the occasion you are participating in at that moment. BBH told Polaroid Europe that “Polaroid is not a camera” but a social lubricant, like alcohol or karaoke.

The ad strategy was designed to reposition Polaroid and make it desirable and aspirational.

It focused on what using a Polaroid says about the user. It has the ability to produce not only instant photographs but an instant social effect. The creative brief identified the emotional benefit as: “Polaroid gives you the opportunity to live life on the edge.”

The campaign was aimed at the younger end of the market, specifically 20 to 30 year-olds. The creative strategy was executed in the campaign idea of Polaroid Live for the Moment, and resulted in the two films – Rock Star and Cure-All.

Rock Star is about someone seizing the moment, and the instant capability of Polaroid to make an emotional connection. Cure-All is about someone suffering the after-effects of living for the moment and uses Polaroids to demonstrate that he is badly in need of remedies. Both have run in France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Hungary and the UK.

Media buying guidelines on Polaroid’s 20m European budget were to air the ads in the early evening and at weekends in stylish, sociable programme environments. MTV was used, and sponsorship with The Pulse was designed to consolidate “style credentials” with opinion formers.

After only two months, advertising awareness has almost doubled, and the majority of respondents feel positive about the advertising.

Polaroid’s European management has increased investment in its 1996 advertising and extended the push from five to eight countries. In the first year, there has been a turnaround in business. The first quarter of 1996 showed a year-on-year increase in camera sales of 75 per cent and film sales grew by 18 per cent.

INDUSTRY Viewpoint

David Willing, director of marketing & publicity for distributor Guild Entertainment

If you have any perception of instant cameras, as I did, then you probably remember pulling the picture out from the back of the camera, sticking it under your sweaty armpit and counting for 60 seconds until the moment of truth. That moment usually turned out overexposed or with a little hint of green just around the… well, just around. Not any more.

Polaroid is kicking, man, or whatever the target audience is saying today. It’s back with a vengeance and if it never was in your life then ask yourself, “why not?” How do I know all this? Because I am told this in the form of two striking 60-second ads by Bartle Bogle Hegarty.

The first of these appears in the form of a “crash and burn” rock artist being frozen in time by the flash of an unidentified photographer while in mid-performance. As we tour around the dripping, body-infested, first five rows of the audience, superbly capturing the claustrophobic atmosphere, we see a concert babe holding said Polaroid as she takes a stunning snap of herself.

At that moment her “come-to-bed” eyes have bled into every orifice of her body. She tosses the instantly developed photo on stage, it lands on the chest of the now prone Rock God, who looks desperate to find the girl and live the moment.

The second commercial takes place after the captured-on-film moment has occurred. We all know that “morning-after” feeling, few have evidence to prove it. Our hero makes his way to the counter of a pharmacy in desperate need of a cure. Words do not need to be exchanged as a mere glimpse of his Polaroids are enough to shock the assistant and pharmacist into giving him anything and everything to cure what may have been the best- or worst – night of his life.

What I find so entertaining about the commercials was the ease with which they turned around the main problem in selling a product such as Polaroid. How relevant can Polaroid be in your life without being seen as something of a social embarrassment? “Seize the day – capture the moment” isn’t enough to convince everyone to buy a product they do not need; however, convince them that without it the party doesn’t get going and you are onto a winner.

The powerful branding of these ads, both of which are pan-Euro friendly as they are without dialogue, seems to have been devised with third-party tie-ins in mind, such as concert sponsorship and film launches normally associated with lager/beer companies. Very few film distributors can afford the luxury of 60-second TV ads. Their impact is stunning, but the cheapskate inside me feels it would be a shame if these commercials are not reworked into punchy 20 or ten-second versions.