Polaroid's Lady Gaga partnership is a stroke of genius

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 | By Vikki Chowney

Yes, you read that right. News reached me on Friday that Polaroid had announced her ‘appointment’ at tech trade show CES in Las Vegas. The company said it will be a multi-year strategic partnership to create a speciality line of Polaroid Imaging products, while Gaga spent most of press conference on message as she babbled about “the Haus of Gaga developing prototypes in the vein of fashion/technology/photography innovation”.

Despite what you think of her − trend-setter or publicity fiend − this is a stroke of genius from Polaroid. The fashion and music blogs are already having some kind of mass-orchestrated fit over the news, with mainstream media bound to catch up sooner or later. I kicked off a discussion on Twitter following the release being sent over, with some saying that she’s unqualified for the role, others applauding the brand’s ability to tie up with someone so perfectly misplaced.

My motives weren’t actually to come up with a conclusive answer, they were to prove a point. Who cares that she’s not qualified? Does it matter if she did or didn’t go to one of the best colleges at NYU? That one conversation thread alone spawned more than 100 responses, all opinionated, all either horrified or excited by the idea. That’s the reason Polaroid has gone Gaga: she’s like a touchpaper for debate.

In true all-publicity-is-good-publicity style, the brand that almost went bust because it couldn’t compete with digital cameras is now being talked about again. It’s also not something to be sniffed at as just a publicity stunt. Of course, it is a publicity stunt in part, but Polaroid could have chosen someone else to front its brand if they wanted someone to just stand with a camera and smile (anyone remember the Polaroid Spice Cam?).

Gaga is known for her ability to change her image, and whether that’s down to the songs she writes, what she wears or how she performs, her work is drenched in creativity. It’s not to everyone’s taste but is most certainly unique. And it doesn’t matter whether that can be directly attributed to her or the team that helps to build her brand − Polaroid has bought into nothing short of a trendsetting machine. Polaroid’s communications team should be slapping themselves on their backs.

The brand ceased production of the much-loved Polaroid instant film camera (as well as the OneStep camera) a few years ago and has now managed to secure a partnership with one of the most relevant figures in pop culture. It doesn’t matter if you hate her, her association brings with it awareness of Polaroid. Half of the reason Polaroid had problems in the first place was that young people didn’t understand the joy of instant film you could hold in your hand, because digital cameras are so much easier.

Polaroid isn’t about ease of use, it’s something more tangible. Gaga makes that notion relevant again − and that’s not even taking into consideration the trend for all things retro that has been bubbling away for a good few years. I hope Polaroid makes the most of this opportunity to breathe new life into its brand, but also that it doesn’t try to do too much. Gaga’s debut album was re-released as a deluxe edition in a limited run just before Christmas and I hope the company takes note, even though she’d probably disagree, that less is sometimes more.

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