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Peer Review

The Branding of Polaroid

Reviewed:

Mar 21, 2008 by Business
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Ratings

Overall Rating: 4.0 stars
Content Quality: 4.2 stars
Effectiveness: 3.5 stars
Ease of Use: 4.5 stars
Overview:

This website looks at how Polaroid developed itself into a brand. Namely, it reviews the branding efforts that were undertaken betwenn the years of 1957 to 1977.
Type of Material:

Polariod's designer Paul Giambarba, the man who began Polaroid's corporate image development in 1958, uses a weblog format to post his thoughts on different subjects of Polaroid brand history. It is a sort of "online case study."
Recommended Uses:

Can be used as a lecture launcher prior to a course segment on branding and brand marketing. However, this module was not designed by an academic so there are not case study questions embedded within the site.
Technical Requirements:

Browser
Identify Major Learning Goals:

To depict a 20 year history of the branding efforts of Polaroid. There are no formal learning goals presented; however, this could be used as a supplemental or intro assignment to any course discussion of branding.
Target Student Population:

Marketing and business students; students with an interest in branding/brand marketing. This site could be used by both undergraduate and graduate students of business and marketing. This website may also be of interest to graphic design students.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Introduction to marketing.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:

The website contains 20+ short stories about the branding efforts of Polariod. For example, the first story explains how a small change in typeface made a huge difference. Another story compares Polaroid's packaging against competitor Kodak. A history is provided regarding the colorful designs for the camera company.
Concerns:

Students may not know what the original Polaroid cameras looked like or how they functioned. Instructors may wish to show images [e.g., http://www.howtoavoidthebummerlife.com/weblog/archives/Polaroid_SX70.gif] to explain this product. Parts of the website include material that is not relevant to the branding of Polariod. For example, the author talks about toys he made for his kids. However, he does state "Consider this a brief interlude or a way of understanding my thought processes as I tried to solve the design challenges I had to deal with every time Polaroid came up with a new product or family of products." Not designed for or by an educator; this is more of a "blog" format. Learning objectives, uses, and activities will have to be designed by the instructor.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:

As a stand-alone website, it provides an interesting historical perspective about the branding efforts of Polaroid. This is an efficient site, that could be used quite easily for a short homework assignment.
Concerns:

To achieve higher-order learning, the instructor would need to develop questions in order to generate class discussion or case analysis about this material.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:

The site is easy to navigate as the stories are presented in chronological order from a menu-bar on the right side of the page. The links clearly describe the title of each story. Some links also provide dates or a date range as a point of reference. There are many pictures to support the narrative for each story.
Concerns:

None.
Other Issues and Comments:

An interesting aspect of this weblog is that visitors can provide comments to the author for posting on the site.
Creative Commons:
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