MARKETING: Polaroid's Big Gamble on Small Cameras

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For the Amateur. In the U.S., Polaroid has upgraded many employees by setting up a unique apprentice system, in which blue-collar workers are assigned to become aides to experienced researchers. "In about two years we find that these people have become almost a Pygmalion problem," says Land. "They have become creative." Indeed, Land believes that almost anything can be accomplished, including the remaking of people. In his drive for breakthroughs, scientific and social, he is always experimenting. While visiting London two years ago, he startled his driver by exclaiming: "Did you know that I am an addict? I am addicted to at least one good experiment a day."

One reason for Polaroid's success is Land's unabashed cultivation of the nonexpert photographer. According to Consultant Augustus Wolfman, who publishes a widely read annual study of the photo industry, some 70% of amateurs' pictures are taken of people, especially babies, relatives and guests at special occasions like birthday parties. Because so many of an amateur's pictures are taken at home or close to home, most of the disadvantages of the current Land cameras—the bulkiness, the throwaway negatives—do not really pose problems. On the other hand, their principal advantage—immediate viewing—is a major asset. Land argues that what the company has to offer its customers is "the realization of an impulse: see it, touch it, have it." Reflecting this, the company's advertisements show informal Polaroid photos of children and family groups. By contrast, Kodak's camera ads emphasize not the subject but the camera itself.

Not everyone is convinced that advances in popular photography bring the medium any closer to realizing its aesthetic potential. Says Peter Bunnell, curator of photography at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art: "Land could invent new cameras every hour and still would not increase the awareness of photography as a creative medium because his cameras are designed for the amateur." Yet few golden ages can occur without first exciting the interest of amateurs, whether as onlookers or as the sources of real artistic talent. Takateru Koakimoto, design chief at Japan's Nikon Inc., recalls that after the original Instamatics were marketed in the mid-'60s, "we began to see so many Americans graduate from their Instamatics and in no time at all switch to our more advanced cameras."

Sales of the sophisticated Japanese cameras are clicking up fast in the U.S. and have wiped out practically all competition from German models. Still, the Japanese marketed only about 1,000,000 cameras in the U.S. last year, capturing under 10% of unit sales. Japanese manufacturers, in fact, refer to the U.S. as a "developing market."