INTRODUCTION

History

The Polaroid Corporation was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land. It is most famous for its
instant film cameras, which reached the market in 1948, and continued to be the company's
flagship product line. The company's original dominant market was in polarized sunglasses,
an outgrowth of Land's self-guided research in polarization after leaving Harvard University
at the age of 17 (he later returned to Harvard to continue his research). After Polaroid
defeated Kodak in a patent battle, Kodak left the instant camera business on January 9, 1986.

Early instant camera were often referred to and titled as "Land yaassss Cameras," named after
the inventor of the instant process, Dr. Land. Instant cameras have been produced to use three
main categories of film: roll film, pack film, and integral film. All of these films can be
expensive, usually costing about $1 per shot, or print. Through its history, Polaroid has been
known as a company that builds quirky cameras cheaply that work quite well. Most Polaroid
cameras have fully automatic exposure systems, with an electronic eye to determine correct
exposure. Quality can range from extremely good, as in the Pathfinder or SX -70 cameras, to
extremely poor, as in the Joycam. Despite its history of innovation, the company entered the
digital photography market very late in the game, and as a result has neither a significant
market share nor significant innovation in this area.

Professional applications of the Polaroid instant film and cameras were as screen-shot
cameras for scientific instruments, passport / identity photos, or large format cameras of other
manufacturers equipped with Polaroid sheet film holders or pack film backs. Polaroid shots
were often used to test studio lighting setups before use of other types of film or camera,
before the instant playback of digital cameras became available.

The company filed for federal bankruptcy protection in October 11, 2001, and most of the
business was thereafter carried on by the Polaroid Holding Company (PHC), managed by
Bank One. Significant criticism surrounded this takeover because the process left executives
of the company with large bonuses, while stockholders, as well as current and retired
employees, were left with nothing. Polaroid's bankruptcy was widely believed to be the result
of the failure of its senior management to see the effect of digital cameras on its film
business, a fate that also befell its primary rival, Kodak. Since the bankruptcy Polaroid
branded LCD and Plasma televisions and portable DVD players have appeared on the market.

On April 27, 2005, Petters Group Worldwide announced its acquisition of PHC. Petters has
in the past bought up failed companies with well-known names for the value of those names.
The same year, Flextronics purchased Polaroid's manufacturing operations and the decision
was made to send most of the manufacturing to China. In January 2009 Polaroid introduced
the digital instant camera PoGo TWO, a variant of Polaroid's innovative portable PoGo photo
printer with built-in digicam. The very compact PoGo printers use special Zink paper for ink-
free printing.

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In March 2009, following bankruptcy proceedings, the Polaroid brandname was sold once
more. At the time of writing, no film is being manufactured under the famous name, but
various projects are being undertaken by people wishing to revive the Polaroid format, such
as the Impossible Project who currently produce SX70, Spectra, 600 and 8x10 film.

Present scenario

On April 2, 2009, Patriarch Partners won an auction for Polaroid Corporation's assets
including the company's name, intellectual property, and photography collection. Patriarch's
$59.1 million bid beat bids from PHC Acquisitions, Hilco Consumer Capital Corp and
Ritchie Capital.

This led to some very contentious fighting and litigation, and Patriarch wound up walking
away in early May, 2009, and a joint venture between Gordon Brothers Brands LLC and
Hilco Consumer Capital LP picked up the pieces. Quoting from a Reuters report which
quoted some participants:

The move by New York-based Patriarch, a private-equity firm, [to drop their claim], follows
US District Judge James Rosenbaum's ruling on Thursday in Minneapolis that putting the
purchase on hold during appeal would threaten operations at Polaroid, which is spending its
cash at a rate of $3 million a month.

On April 16, 2009, Polaroid won US Bankruptcy Court approval to be sold to a joint venture
of Hilco Consumer Capital LP of Toronto and Gordon Brothers Brands LLC of Boston.

Hilco Consumer Capital and Gordon Brothers Brands announced the closing of the purchase
of Polaroid Corporation on May 7, 2009 placing Polaroid Corporation in joint holding under
a parent company named PLR IP Holdings, LLC. Former Executive Vice President and
General Manager - Americas, Scott W. Hardy was named as the new President of Polaroid
Corporation and PLR IP Holdings, LLC. The majority of employees remained in their
positions at the company's Minnetonka, Minnesota headquarters as well as office locations in
Boston, New York and Toronto.

On June 19, 2009, the new holding corporation for Polaroid, PLR IP Holdings, LLC
announced an exclusive 5-year agreement with Summit Global Group to produce and
distribute Polaroid branded digital still cameras, digital video cameras, digital photo frames
and PoGo branded mobile products. Summit Global Group added several former Polaroid
employees to their staff. The company expects the agreement to yield $1.3 billion in retail
sales over an unspecified period beginning in 2009.

On March 22, 2010, The Impossible Project announced the release of two monochromatic
films, PX100 and PX600, compatible with SX-70 and 600 type cameras, respectively.[37]
Color films were initially released in 2010 for SX-70 type cameras, followed in 2011 with the
release of much improved color films for Polaroid 600, SX-70 and Spectra Cameras.

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cns|Polaroid had originally announced a new camera, styled after older models to coincide
with the new films, but this was due before Christmas 2010—a deadline which passed with
no new information on this new comer.

On April 28, 2012 the documentary "Time Zero: The Last Year of Polaroid Film", directed
by Grant Hamilton, was released in the U.S. It covers the rise, fall, and grass-roots revival of
Polaroid's instant film technology.

Digital photography

Polaroid released a line of cameras without printers including the t1035, a 10-megapixel
digital camera.

In January 2012, Polaroid announced a new "smart camera", entitled the Polaroid SC1630
smart camera, which is powered by Google Android. The SC1630 is a combination of a
camera and a portable media player, that allows users to take photos with a built-in 16 MP
HD camera, download apps from Google Play, check their email, and browse the web. The
built-in camera allows 3X optical zoom. Other features on the media player include wi-fi,
touch screen, geotagging, smart albums, and 32 GB of memory via a micro SD card.

In September 2014 Polaroid introduced a $99 action camera named the "Polaroid Cube",
marketed as an alternative to cameras such as the GoPro Hero (which retails for $129),
specifically for casual, light users of action camcorders. In 2015 GoPro released the similar
GoPro HERO4 Session.

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 PROBLEMS FACED BY THE COMPANY
This project deals with the crisis going on in the Polaroid camera company. Although there
were some steps taken by the company during its first crisis in 1980 and after that the
company again started to earn profit but again in the year 2001 and 2008 it faced bankruptcy
and till now it is unable to recover from that crisis. The main reason of its failure was that it
failed to adapt to changing technology and it was unable to launch its product in comparison
to Kodak, Canon, Sony, etc. Also it faced lack of innovation in its technology as well as its
design. The basic demand in today’s world for success to any company is advertisement and
the company had poor marketing management. The major challenge for the company was
that they were unable to handle growing competition from 35-mm disposable cameras, one-
hour processing, and camcorders.

They were unable to find out how people actually used Polaroid and what kind of pictures
were taken by the camera also they were unable to identify whether there could be any tyoe
of picture that could be owned by Polaroid and was not possible with other cameras. Polaroid
made their money by selling cheap cameras and then charge a lot of money for the polaroid
film. Since film is used continuously this turned out to be a fantastic business model with
fantastic profits. Gradually the customers got to know about the strategy and slowly the profit
of the company fell down.

The various problems faced by the company are:

Product

When consumers thought about instant photography they generally thought of Polaroid. This
stands true because the Polaroid company remains the only instant camera on the market
despite efforts of competitors to enter the market. Although Polaroid offers this vast array of
products, we will focus mainly on the instant market.

Polaroid's product line has many features; over 20 to be exact. One can find these features not
on one individual camera, but spread out among the thirteen cameras. When evaluating the
product line for marketability, I found that Polaroid has some problems with the camera from
the point of view of the general public consumer. For instance, we found that using the
camera was hard because it was so bulky. Second, finding a place to keep the pictures once
they were taken seems to present a problem. Third, the price of the film proves to expensive
for the number of pictures received. Fourth, because the roll only contains ten pictures,
constantly changing the film was a great inconvenience. These problems together outweigh
the instant feature of the Polaroid.

The above problems, however, do not seem to bother the consumers who use the Polaroid for
specialized professional reasons. The convenience of having a quick picture is all that counts
for the police, construction, and documentation work while quality of picture, ease of use,
and film price do not matter as much. That is why Polaroid has focused its main marketing
efforts towards this target market and not the general public consumer.

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Price

Because Polaroid is a unique product, it also possess a unique pricing strategy; especially
with its captive film market. This captive product pricing method ties specialized film to each
camera. The Polaroid instant film is the only type that can be used with the camera, so the
pricing method used by Polaroid is the best strategy for maximizing profit.

When researching price was found that the price of the camera and film does not vary much
among stores, however, the price of film costs almost as much as the camera. When it was
asked employees at Kits Camera if the camera ever goes on sale, they responded that the
camera usually does not because it is priced close to net cost, but the film does sometimes.
Bartell's sales usually consist of a 2 pack (20 pictures) for the price of a single pack (10
pictures). Payless usually puts their film on sale once every two months, and their film was
the second cheapest out of the four stores looked at.

This strategy, as a consumer, does not help promote the continued use of the Polaroid camera.
Many customers complained about the high priced film. The customers would much rather
pay more for a quality camera and less on film. Although this pricing strategy may have
worked in the past to maximize profit, we feel it will cause more damage than do good in the
current competitive market.

Distribution

For the instant camera, Polaroid has - in the U.S.- a wholesale distribution system that
delivers the camera and film to larger retail companies that are primarily in convenient
locations to the consumer. Locations such as Target, Payless Drug and Fred Meyer give easy
accessibility to the consumer. Convenience is a prime marketing target of Polaroid and
establishing these types of location is a key factor. In emerging markets, Polaroid takes a
much less traditional approach to distribution. For example, in Russia Polaroid began with a
direct distribution system by selling directly to flea markets and small shops. With increasing
demand, Polaroid began expanding their distribution by adding wholesale distributors in the
major cities. Because this process works, Polaroid continues to implement this system in
other countries such as China, India, and Vietnam.

It is felt that the above distribution strategy proves to be a good one for Polaroid. Although
the U.S. market decreased, Polaroid can make up for lost profits by creating new demand in
other countries. In order to continue its success, Polaroid must keep abreast of global
demands and trends.

Positioning

Through repositioning, Polaroid was attempting to create new customers for their product in
the domestic market. In an attempt to increase sales the company has targeted young parents
who usually buy disposable, 35mm, or video cameras. According to Simmons Market
Research, in the last twenty years ownership of instant cameras has declined by 17% while
ownership of 35mm cameras has grown by 24%. (Davis, F1) To change this trend Polaroid is
attempting to demonstrate new uses for their product and to rejuvenate product awareness

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through community programs and advertising. In emerging markets Polaroid has positioned
their product differently than in more established markets. Polaroid positions their product as
a practical solution for those who want to take pictures, but live in areas that lack the
infrastructure required to process and develop rolls of film. The company has done very well
in these markets and plans to increase sales to more countries in the future.

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 Implementation Of The Solution To The Problem Faced By The
Company

The implementation of a plan could have been done in the way that was more practical and
feasible with the company. If I would have been the CEO of the company I would have
executed the plan mentioned below.

The managers or for that matter whoever is the responsible person could have focused on
groups of owners and non-owners of a Polaroid camera, men and women and the owner
should be provided with two films and the non-owners should be provided with two films as
well as a camera and they could have been asked to click some pictures of anything they
liked and bring them back to the group. Then the photographs should be analysed, as in they
should have checked that the pictures were similar or the those kind of pictures could only
have been taken by a Polaroid camera. If the result would have come like most (90%) of the
pictures were similar, could have been taken from any camera and some (10%) of the pictures
could only have been taken by a Polaroid camera then I could have created a separate
research team and I would have asked them to come up with some new innovation so that the
pictures taken from the Polaroid camera is unique. So that the camera company could have
survived because of its uniqueness. Also if this idea would have worked I would not have
kept the price of that camera too high, I could have kept it for a price which a common man
could afford and I could have increased my profit from the large scale company or affirm or
that matter from the the defence area as the company was providing its cameras to the
defence of the countries like Russia, U.S, etc.

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 SUGGESTIONS

 The company should have focused on values and not on products.

 Maybe heighten innovative or unusual ways that people are using Polaroid – at home
and at work.
 Show Polaroid as a participant- a means, not an end.
 Perhaps focus on the effects of a Polaroid picture- the chain of events that it sets in
motion.
 Taking a picture so something would happen, for a certain reason, to achieve a
particular objective.
 Using Polaroid as a tool for communication, how the pictures can be a language in
themselves.
 They should have adopted new strategies but the business model should have been the
same.