Polaroid's Case for Imperfection, Made on Purpose

Patricia Varella's brief at Polaroid runs against the usual rhythm of brand work: plan for a long line rather than the next quarter. The identity she describes rests on imperfection, which is convenient, since the product itself delivers unpredictable colour, light leaks and frames that cannot be repeated.

Recently that identity found a sharp opposite. The brand's campaign positioning itself against AI-generated imagery went viral and drew argument, and its logic is simple enough: a generated image can be retried until it is perfect, while instant film is one attempt with no undo. The risk is structural. Defining yourself as the negative of a rival technology produces a strong campaign and a dependent narrative. The harder work, and the one Varella's emphasis on continuity points to, is explaining why an unrepeatable frame matters once the campaign has stopped trending.