Polaroid Is Back2Back

Polaroid has just rebranded itself again, which signals another rebirth for the brand that has been born, reborn, born again. And again.

Danny Pemberton, formerly of Polaroid Originals, lately at IDEO has led the latest rebirth.

Several years ago, I walked through the deserted offices of the formerly famous Polaroid Corporation. The company HQ was set in a pine forest outside of Boston, a mix of 1950s buildings in stylish architecture that you had to guess was probably featured heavily in Architectural Digest, et al.

On this overcast gray day, however, the Polaroid campus felt like hollowed cadavers of a once thriving corporation. Security guards and essential maintenance personnel prowled the grounds in golf carts. We were led to an empty cafeteria. Beside the aisle where people used to stand waiting for food, was what looked like a wall-sized organizational chart — but the pyramid-shaped chart was actually the who’s who of Polaroid scientists and engineers — organized top to bottom of who had been awarded the most patents. At the top was someone who held over 10,000 patents.

There was no guessing what mattered at Polaroid Corporation.

We continued to wander. From the cafeteria, we went underground ducking under a steaming network of pipes and coils as an engineer explained that founder Edwin H. Land…