Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

As if Instagram weren’t easy enough already, last week we learned that the Socialmatic, aka the “Instagram Camera”, is really going to happenthanks to a deal between an Italian inventor and the folks responsible for the Polaroid name. We find the concept behind this product amusing, but it also represents the latest step in an interesting rebranding experiment.

 

The old-school camera company went bankrupt more than a decade ago, and the folks who bought the name quickly began making money by licensing it to other brands. C&A Licensing, which owns the rights to all things “Polaroid”, already attempted to tie it to the smartphone craze earlier this year by planning a series of “FotoBar” locations that aim to put the brand back in business by aping the Apple Genius Bar retail model....