Polaroid - Playing up a Key Product Benefit

In the mid 1990s, Polaroid was in a tough situation. The influx of new digital cameras was leaving the market for immediate photography flat. Polaroid needed to rethink what relevant benefit they offered its consumers and exploit it. Fortunately for Polaroid, market research and an amazing communications campaign helped it come back with a vengeance. Market research revealed that the key consumer benefit for Polaroid is that it allows for instant gratification. Consumers can take a picture and immediately have it to keep, share or embarrass. An innovative print and TV campaign created witty dialogues where the Polaroid camera played "hero" and ultimately solved the issue at hand. In one commercial, a busy executive is called at work by his wife and told to look in his briefcase. When he protests that he is too busy to be playing games, he realizes that the picture is a nude Polaroid and he shirks his work and rushes home for a lunchtime tryst. In a print execution, a father and son are sharing a bittersweet dialogue before the father leaves for a business trip. When the son asks, "Can I go with you Dad?" The father says "yes" by taking a Polaroid of his son and placing it in his wallet. Only Polaroid satisfies this need for instant photo gratification.