02/20/2004 03:03:00 PM 
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This is more attention than a smart multi-million dollar superbowl ad campaign receives. Out of all the potential directions they could have taken this free media, Polaroid has used it to make the point that you don't actually have to shake Polaroid pictures anymore, that shaking may actually damage the photos. What does that message accomplish? To their credit, at least Polaroid is on front-pages and in conversations. If they hadn't issued any statement, the lyric would have faded without any attention.
But with numerous instant digital photo-printing technologies inevitably entering the market in the next few years to replace the declining classical Polaroid model (expensive single-use film, no negatives, etc,) all Polaroid has is its brand. Unless they do something to make it meaningful, even that will be worthless.
The headline on the Polaroid website shows their intended positioning: "Real, Authentic, Original." But two years from now, will consumers care whether the instant digital camera they buy comes from the brand known for the previous instant camera technology? Polaroid will be up against numerous other relevant and evocative brands that will enter the space like Sony, Dell and even licensing brands like Nike and Virgin.
Polaroid should be jumping at the opportunity to use the free media to convey brand personality, to spark a new incarnation of their consumer-brand relationship. They're running on nostalgia and losing steam, this is the opportunity to develop a dialogue with new segments of consumers, to quickly make viral hip hop web films and collect emails to view them, to inform the world about its 'polaroid i-zone' sticker cameras or about its 2-second digital print kiosks, to do something other than sit back and let the phenomenon blow by as the brand's dying breath mutters, 'don't shake the pictures.'
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