are many challenges it faces in order to increase its share of the camera market.
The external environment is filled with threats where Polaroid is concerned. Among these, changing societal conditions represents one of the biggest challenges. Markets are more fragmented than ever in the face of the growing diversity of the U.S. population and the increasing level of individualism in consumer purchasing habits. These trends are directly related to two trends which represent a challenge to Polaroid in terms of marketing:
Increased need for segmentation strategy to reach consumers
Need to diversify advertising vehicles and media
Demographically, the population is changing both in terms of the numbers of mature individuals and minorities. As individualism becomes more entrenched in American culture, consumers are becoming more aware of issues like the environment, the disabled, and other special issues they take up as their own. Marketing must become attuned to these issues in order to reach fragmented market populations while being sensitive to the individual issues that define each population. Other societal challenges in the external environment include increased competition from specialized media and communications channels, not to mention the Internet and digital photography.
Where the U.S. market is concerned, sales in the total still-camera market are flat and it appears the industry is a mature one. Other threats in the external environment include the growing popularity of one-hour film processing centers including many located in major retailers like Wal-Mart. Further, instant film is much more costly to process than conventional film “The cost per developed image for instant film will be about $0.97 this year versus about $0.39 for 35mm film” (797). Another major challenge to Polaroid is the low-level of brand awareness and corporate image among consumers. As one executive stated “When I meet peo...