Instax vs Polaroid: Polaroid Went Bankrupt Twice. Instax Took Over
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Chapters
00:00 The ritual every photo lover knew
02:23 A question from a three year old
05:36 Polaroid takes Kodak to court
06:38 The scoreboard before the storm
07:18 The trouble begins inside Polaroid
08:35 The storm: digital arrives
10:07 Bankrupt, twice
11:12 The last factory in the Netherlands
12:32 Fujifilm's choice: keep Instax alive
13:58 The generation that wanted something to hold
16:09 The scoreboard
Polaroid invented instant photography. For decades, that little white square was one of the most recognisable objects in the world, and the company behind it was so dominant that it took Kodak to court over instant photography and won. Then, in October 2001, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy. In 2008 it announced it would stop making instant film altogether, and that same year it went bankrupt again. Instant photography should have died with it. Instead, a small camera from Japan quietly took over, and today Fujifilm sells Instax cameras by the millions to people who were not even born when Polaroid collapsed.
This is the story of how that happened, and why the company that invented a market ended up losing it to a rival that arrived late.
It starts in 1943, with a question from a three year old. On holiday in Santa Fe, inventor Edwin Land took a photo of his daughter, and she asked why she could not see the picture straight away. Land spent the following years turning that question into a camera that carried its own tiny darkroom inside it. When the first Polaroid instant camera went on sale in Boston in 1948, it sold out on the first day. Over the next decades, Land turned Polaroid into one of the great American technology companies, with hundreds of patents, legendary product launches and a camera so elegant it put him on the cover of Life magazine. Artists loved it too. Ansel Adams worked with the company for years, and Andy Warhol carried a Polaroid camera almost everywhere.
When Kodak entered instant photography in 1976, Polaroid went to court. Nearly ten years later, the court ruled that Kodak had infringed Polaroid's patents. Kodak was forced out of the instant market, and eventually paid Polaroid close to a billion dollars in damages. If you watched our Fujifilm vs Kodak duel, you will recognise the loser in this fight.
But inside Polaroid, the trouble had already started. Land's last big bet, instant home movies, failed. He stepped down as chief executive in 1980. One hour photo labs made ordinary prints fast and cheap. A takeover battle in the late 1980s left the company with heavy debt. And then digital cameras arrived and did something that should have terrified Polaroid more than anyone: they showed you the picture instantly, for free, as many times as you liked. Polaroid had spent fifty years selling one promise. See your picture now. Digital made that promise worthless.
After the first bankruptcy, the Polaroid name was sold and sold again, and ended up on televisions and gadgets made by other companies. Its owner at the time of the second bankruptcy was later convicted in a large fraud case that had nothing to do with photography. The last Polaroid instant film factory, in Enschede in the Netherlands, was rescued in 2008 by a small group of enthusiasts called the Impossible Project, who had to rebuild the film chemistry almost from scratch. Years later, that group took over the Polaroid brand itself.
Meanwhile, Fujifilm made a quiet choice. It had launched a small instant camera called Instax in Japan in 1998, and when sales dropped sharply in the digital years, it kept making it anyway. Then a generation that grew up with phones discovered something they had never had: a photograph you could hold. One print, impossible to copy, perfect for weddings, parties and festivals. Fujifilm made the cameras cheap, colourful and fun, and Instax became one of the most important parts of its imaging business.
So why did Fujifilm win a market that Polaroid invented, owned and lost? Because Polaroid believed it was selling speed, while Fujifilm understood that people were paying for the object. Digital could beat Polaroid's promise. It could not copy Fujifilm's.
Parallel Fates. Two companies. One storm. Different endings.
#Polaroid #Instax #BusinessHistory
