Polaroid's Plan to Get Millennials to Print Their Photos

It's not likely that the people who once used Polaroid's Instamatic cameras are the company's future, not least of all because they're currently well into their 50s. Their kids, however—also known as Generation Y—are squarely in Polaroid's viewfinder. Its GoPro-chasing $99 action camera, the Cube, was the Minnesota company’s first—and, it says, highly successful—bid for younger consumers. Next up: a mobile, wireless printer that spits out wallet-size images without using ink cartridges. Like the Instamatics of yore, the bulk of the technology is built into the paper.

That’s largely where the similarities end. The simple, clean, white pocket-size printer, dubbed Zip, is reminiscent of a younger icon—a first-generation iPod—and it is the first of Polaroid's mobile printers that works on iOS. Polaroid once again enlisted the help of the San Francisco industrial-design firm Ammunition, responsible for the Cube and and led by Robert Brunner, a former Apple designer.

“People are capturing billions of photos per day now on their smartphones,” says Polaroid Chief Executive Scott Hardy, “and the idea of being able to turn them into something tangible is such a novel concept to the digital-native generation.” To entice the typical Snapchat users to start printing their pictures, Zip lets them add a QR code to the 2-inch-by-3-inch image that, when viewed through a Polaroid app, can reveal a doctored version, or “secret view.” The app also has business-card templates, as well as a few add-on options, such as filters, frames, and, yes, emoji.

Recently, the company released a camera-printer hybrid, called the Socialmatic, aimed at the younger set. The 14-megapixel camera connects to Wi-Fi for online sharing to Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, as well as prints library-size, adhesive-backed photos at the press of a button. At $300, it might be a tougher sell than the $129 Zip, which connects wirelessly through Bluetooth or by near-field communication to the smartphones kids already own.

Remember, Polaroid isn’t the same business that Edwin Land began in 1937. It went through some hard knocks after seeing a sharp decline in demand beginning in the 1980s. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001, a decade after Land’s death, and since 2009, Polaroid has been owned by Gordon Brothers Brands and Hilco Consumer Capital. It no longer does in-house research and development and instead develops partnerships with other companies with innovations, such as ZINK (zero ink) printing technology, which it uses in its instant digital cameras and the new Zip. Each photo Zip prints, Hardy says, contains 1 billion cyan, yellow, and magenta dye crystals.

That paper technology—like the old Instamatic film—doesn’t come cheap. Zink paper is about $30 for a pack of 100, or 30¢ per sheet. That cost may make or break the Zip when it becomes available this spring.