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Crisis Communication Plan: The Unfolding of Polaroid

Final Project

COMM 451

Ryan Roberts-Johnson

(12-08-2022)
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Identify your Company/Organization

           Polaroid is a company that uses nostalgia for marketing its business plans to evoke

positive feelings in its consumers and employees. What's a better way than to take the pictures

you want and create and capture the meaningful and most precious moments in your life?

Polaroid is a company that strives for success through innovation and up-to-date technology that

allows you to capture every moment and take it with you wherever you go. Polaroid's mission is

to "build a forward-thinking and innovative future for our beloved brand." Polaroid's

organizational goals are "to capture every moment. We must appreciate what's in front of us to

create and capture every moment. Everything feels temporary and disposable—nothing around

long enough to move us. To make us feel connected, to make us feel human – we won't stand for

that. We exist to help you see those moments, to pause them, and to relive them in something

you can hold in your hand and turn to forever" (Polaroid, 2022). Polaroid's team involves Edwin

Herbert Land, inventor of instant photography for Polaroid; Scott Hardy, the President, and

CEO; Kent Akervic, CFO; Jeff Harper, CMO, Mark Payne, Vice President of Operations; and

our sales and production associates available by contacting our customer service team. Polaroid

customer service is available by contacting them via phone at 1-800-765-2764 or by submitting

your requests on our website at https://support.polaroid.com/hc/en-us/requests/new. 

Polaroid's Exigence

           Polaroids' exigence was seen through time, but they could only partially grasp the digital

world of the 1990s. Polaroid had multiple reasons for its success and its failure as a company:

1. The company's success was visioned through its instant cameras, which produced film

immediately after the picture was shot through the lens. But once the company couldn't
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perfect its innovations, Fujifilm took an interest in risks to innovate progression through

Polaroid's innovation ideas overwhelmingly. The exigence of Polaroid's failures is that

the company failed to recognize and listen to its research and development team for

ignoring the potential of its potentially lucrative products.

2. The company focused and put all its time and energy into instant cameras and film

innovation.

3. The company focused on being perfectionists instead of concentrating on keeping up with

the times.

4. Polaroid couldn't embrace the truth about the success of the digital camera in the 1990s

because they thought that the 1948 instant camera was the root of their success; instead,

they missed out on big vital profits.

When a company like Polaroid didn't learn through its research and development team, it also

needed to recognize the risks involved. As a result, Polaroid became an opportunity for another

company to advance and be the powerhouse of the new business age. Unfortunately, because of

its risks and failures, Polaroid never saw its digital world of innovation renewal. Organizations

must learn to recognize risk by accepting and acting on their losses (Ulmer, 2022). Organizations

like Polaroid should also acknowledge their uncertainties and see that there is a benefit to the

outcome of promoting future ideas and inventions. Another exigence was that Land, in 1977,

introduced a Polaroid Instant Home Movie camera named Polavision. This Instant Camera is

contingent on or known as the Dufaycolor process. Thus, the product arrived when videotape

systems were rapidly gaining popularity. Therefore, this innovation could have adequately sold

well through retail stores if brought out sooner but instead put on the back shelves. Therefore,
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today this is known as the swan song for Polaroid. Another crisis for the decline in the Polaroid

organization was that they went bankrupt in both 2001 and 2008. Instead of becoming bankrupt,

they could have conquered their organization if they had just had faith in their team and had

confidence in their product, thus entering out of a crisis that led to their defeat to their competitor

Fujifilm (stakeholder). Kodak (stakeholders) had a mutual bond that helped each other grow as a

company. Philanthropists are still determining the question as to why Polaroid became bankrupt.

Fujifilm realized the company's faults in keeping up with technological advancements and took

an interest in acquisitions to create digital cameras.

Polaroid's unethical behavior within the company's management team was seen through

the antidiscrimination of African Americans in South Africa through its 1966 ID-2 photographic

system. This photographic system produced two color photographs for identification cards, thus

creating a likewise GPS tracking system but instead using instant photos (Ramirez, 2020). The

question of moral agency is crucial because it often determines who will be held responsible for

unethical behavior (Ulmer, 2022). Although Polaroid company never confirmed racism, the use

of the ID-2 photographic system would have contributed to the work slave trade movement of

race and separating workers from white and black thus, contributing to segregation. Polaroid's

unethical behavior contributed to the facets or ideas of other companies of allowing cheap labor

to produce high-profit products to protect large profits. To protect against its unethical behavior,

Polaroid should have practiced using corporate apologia. Whether Polaroid was lying to its

management team or employees, this behavior is not ethical but unethical, and its exigence is

unsuited for the times. For example, the "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr.

created equality for ethical behavior. Polaroid steered the company toward needing more time to
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move to the future. A key term here is that Polaroid should have taken responsibility and

accountability for their actions to promote social justice and not try to encourage discrimination. 

           Polaroid should have had a beneficial risk and crisis communication plan for when things

go south to answer the why factor for the crises. A crisis happens when we need more

preparation, but we must create a plan for the organization's future. Still, it should prepare every

company for things that will help them avoid making a bigger problem for their overall

organization. For Polaroid, the crisis falls under the categories of becoming bankrupt, being

unethical, not opportunistic (innovation failure), and not learning from uncertainty.

Communicating with your employees and customers also protects your company from a crisis.

Crises are adrenaline for innovation, and Polaroid itself was fierce when it came to innovative

ideas, but its perfectionistic ideas were its downfall. A company needs to have an optimistic look

to the future and not have a negative, pessimistic sense of evaluation through its business

mindset. Organizations that can frame crises more favorably can better move beyond them

(Ulmer, 2022). Beings Polaroid has been involved in digital photography since the 1960s. By the

1970s, Polaroid had 15% of the camera market in the US, and the company only grew from

there. In 1989, Polaroid spent 42% of all its R&D spending on digital imaging. The company

banked on the idea that people would always want hard-copy prints. Polaroid's executives

banked on the idea of outdated technology and needed to do proper market research. As our

world becomes more complex, interconnected, centralized, and efficient, the frequency and

forms of crises will steadily increase (Ulmer, 2022).

Identify the Goal of the Crisis Plan

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The goals Polaroid should have used were to keep the organization's image intact, link

the plans to the organization's mission statement and values, understand their long and short-term

goals, and by reducing uncertainty. To keep the organization's image intact, it must be truthful

and honest, establish core values, morals, and ethics, and amplify customer service. To keep the

organization's goals intact, it must follow its mission statement and values. To do this, a

company needs to pursue its mission statement by focusing on tangible objectives that its

currently working toward achieving. Next, the company needs to work on its aspirations through

its vision statement by prioritizing the company's long-term hopes. Finally, the company needs to

embody its morals through its value statements by describing its traits and ethics to represent

company employees and leaders. An overall goal is to expand Polaroid's market to younger

audiences; while also focusing on older generations (pop culture) familiar with Polaroid. 

To help Polaroid succeed, I have addressed the goals they need to do as a company by

describing their long-term and short-term goals. Their short-term goals are to enter new markets.

Specifically, those with art and fashion communities present new technology at consumer

electronic shows, publicize innovative products in different forms of advertising media, mass

produce products in retail to gain access to their customer base and participate in community

promotions. Their long-term goals are to re-establish its instant imaging, maximize profit and

return to shareowners while being primarily aware of its responsibilities. Form license deals to

expand its brand into new market segments. Regain a large portion of the niche photography

market by offering a social media networking movement for its consumers to share and like. 

           To sufficiently help Polaroid grow through its core values, I changed its Mission

Statement, "To innovate new forms of hands-on traditional digital photographic media. While
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keeping the hands-on instant photographic gratification to keep vintage relative to people of all

ages." Its Vision Statement, "With positive leadership, all people should have access to both

traditional and instant photographic gratification," and its Value Statement, "Leadership in equity

and equality, future innovations, passion, and compassion. To grasp future ideas, Polaroid will be

able to innovate to new audiences by expanding their market to more than just amateur. They

will be able to bring back instant cameras with a modern twist and the older ones to be

compatible with traditional film media. Determining Polaroid's core values through its mission,

vision, and value statement will allow Polaroid to recover from its crisis and start fresh.

Identify the Audience

           Stakeholders are the people or audiences who help a business succeed. Polaroid's past

stakeholders include its competitors, Fujifilm and Kodak. Fujifilm can be contacted by phone at

1 (800) 800-3854 and Kodak at 1 (855) 881-3508. Kodak and Polaroid were two giants of the

photography industry and had enjoyed a long and mutually beneficial relationship together for

decades. In 1934, Kodak was the first customer of Edwin Land's plastic polarizer sheet.

Nevertheless, in 1976, Kodak invented the new camera and film system that would later wind

Polaroid and them at the Supreme Court to settle its branding and innovative restraints they had

with their competitive market scandal. Fujifilm had acquisitions with Polaroid, but today

Fujifilm is the winner in the instant film business due to its technical resources over Polaroid. Its

customers or consumers are primarily amateurs (Generation Y). Its investors/partners, best

known as Ansel Adams, David Hockney, and Andy Warhol, tested their products. Andy Warhol

is known for his success in visual arts and for producing art that technically involved pop art.

The Polaroid camera provided Andy Warhol with one more technology that placed a distance
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between him and the subject. The Polaroid camera gave Andy Warhol a new way to present his

artistic creations. To learn more about Andy Warhol, contact his museum at 1 (412) 237-8300.

Its employees Ken Williams and Caroline Hunter were the Polaroid workers who led the protests

against their employer for representing social injustices throughout Polaroid. For more

information on the Polaroid Revolutionary Workers Movement, they can be emailed to

Sftp.publishing@gmail.com. Government involvement through the apartheid government in

South Africa produced the photos used in passbooks and documents designed to control where

Africans could work and with whom they could live (Facing History & Ourselves, 2018). Strong,

positive stakeholder relationships best predict effective crisis management (Ulmer, 2022).

Polaroid had strong stakeholder relationships with the apartheid government, its amateur

customers, and its relationships with Andy Warhol. Before a crisis, it is crucial to have strong

stakeholder relationships within a business. Before a crisis, develop true, equal partnerships with

organizations and groups important to the organization (Ulmer, 2022). However, Polaroid went

bankrupt and is no longer active in America today. Polaroid can be contacted at 1-800-765-2764

or by submitting requests on their website at https://support.polaroid.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.

Because of its competitors, Kodak and Fujifilm took advantage of the market and came out with

digital cameras; the mirror of Polaroid is in the background awaiting its renewal. Thus, mergers

and acquisitions can be sighted because Fujifilm overtook the innovative photography market.

           For Polaroid, its investors/partners Ansel Adams, David Hockney, and Andy Warhol

helped stride the company towards its success and nostalgic marketing strategy to make the

young want to use their instant cameras. Hence, Polaroid's audiences benefited from their plans.

Still, once the market meets with demand and innovations, a company like Polaroid will regret
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its decision-making because it failed to take risks. Kodak and Fujifilm took risks in innovating

the new digital cameras in the late 1990s and thus prevailed, leaving Polaroid bankrupt. Having

involvement with the apartheid government in South Africa was, in fact, probably the worse

decision-making process they could have done. Their decision-making process was a threat

because it destroyed Polaroid's business model of making humanitarian efforts for its workers a

priority. Because Polaroid's employees Ken Williams and Caroline Hunter stood up for the social

injustices of the actions and behavior they had seen within the business and for acting out and

calling for the boycott of international products from Polaroid, they withdrew. Ultimately,

Polaroid found that its local distributor (Primary Stakeholder) was showing signs of fraudulent

behavior and was revealed in a Boston Globe investigation to have conducted acts of profit gain

through the apartheid government. 

Although, the person who caused Polaroid's defeat was the original owner Edwin Land.

Later, we would discover that Edwin Land was Polaroid's greatest asset and liability. Due to

Land's perfectionist and purist nature, Land's emphasis on his ideas outweighed his interest in

profits. As a result, Polaroid's inventions were only sometimes enough over time to keep the

company solvent. Land believed that "every significant invention … must come to a world that is

unprepared for it." As a result, Polaroid kept getting more new artists and innovations that drove

its business into one financial struggle. This struggle would be a curve ball that landed in a field

of the isolated territory they could not overcome through its financial obligations.

Identify and Assess Example Crises

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Organizations should treat failure as an opportunity to recognize a potential crisis or to

prevent a similar crisis in the future (Ulmer, 2022). When identifying and assessing risks through

crises, we need to determine what could go wrong and whom this might affect. For Polaroid, this

comes from having a relationship with the apartheid government through its distributor for profit

gains. When employees see a trigger or threat in your business, you should act on the situation

and assess the risk. Polaroid took the steps needed to work on the risk and took products out of

South American companies, but that still needs to be better to assess the situation. Employees are

the main facet of your company and the profit makers for your business to succeed.

Communicating with your employees and understanding their needs is essential, especially in

situations that involve a crisis. To answer the question, what could go wrong and to whom this

might affect? These facets could cause employees to leave the company because of showing

signs of showing unhumanitarian efforts and not being loyal to your employee's efforts to make

your business profitable. A simple gesture would be to acknowledge your wrongdoings or

acknowledge your stakeholders, including the media, as partners when managing a crisis (Ulmer,

2022). It would be best if you never panicked and over-reassured stakeholders about the crisis's

impact on them (Ulmer, 2022). Polaroid didn't take risks in letting their innovative digital

cameras be released to the public because of their perfectionistic views and complexities with the

ideas, thus destroying their company. Polaroid could have better prepared itself for a crisis by

listening and communicating well with its internal and external stakeholders. Getting input from

mentors and advisors, having professional PR firms and attorneys, using social media in an open

yet controlled way, and thus will be able to spot the crisis before it even develops.

Identify and Answer Common Questions

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           We must understand uncertainty and its role in a crisis to identify and answer common

questions. Epistemological uncertainty is the lack of knowledge we have following a crisis.

Ontological uncertainty refers to the type of uncertainty in which the future has little or no

relationship to the past (Ulmer, 2022). Because Polaroid has many reasons why or how they

became bankrupt or why their business failed is uncertain even today. "Determining Polaroid's

core values through its mission statement, vision statement, and value statement will allow

Polaroid to recover from its crisis and start fresh." Only some crises can be recovered from its

mission statement, vision statement, and value statement through its core values. Every company

has its learning growth and learns opportunities differently, even if it's different from the core

values that help them with the discourse of renewal.

Some companies may still be searching to define their core values or need to learn how to

put them into practice. "A company needs to have an optimistic look to the future and not have a

negative, pessimistic sense of evaluation through their business mindset." Some companies

would rather play the blame game or focus more on assigning blame and responsibility for a

crisis. You can't tell a business how to prevent a crisis or run their business; everyone must

sometimes learn for themselves because it's their business. Learning through uncertainty

sometimes is the only way we learn at all. "A key term here is that Polaroid should have taken

responsibility and accountability for their actions to promote social justice and not try to

encourage discrimination." Not all businesses have to account for their actions if they don't take

responsibility and accountability into action, even though this would be considered unethical.

Having Epistemological Uncertainty doesn't mean Polaroid isn't taking accountability or

responsibility for its actions, which the public sees as a crisis over social injustices within there
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organization. "The exigence of Polaroid's failures is that the company failed to recognize and

listen to its research and development team for ignoring the potential of its potentially lucrative

products." In context, Polaroid probably wanted to draw issues and concerns through persuasion

or identification of the crisis rather than the old standard hierarchical ethical principles. Polaroid

wanted to take the risk through ontological uncertainty and couldn't be persuaded even if there

were risks involved that would jeopardize their company. 

Discuss the Constraints

           The symmetrical relationship between Polaroid and its stakeholders was that it had this

nostalgic marketing strategy that its stakeholders appreciated. The stakeholders warned Polaroid

about diversity and inclusion, creating innovations, and not involving themselves in sticky

situations that could jeopardize its profit shares with its consumers. One significant factor is that

Polaroid had too much of a bond with its distributor in South Africa that once it was too late for

them to see the problems with their distributor, their two black employees sought social

injustices through Polaroid. Polaroid then had no choice but to drop its distributor and its

products due to social injustices that people recognized throughout the company. Because

Polaroid had a nostalgic market to keep emotions tied to its future and past consumers, invoking

positive and emotional feelings made its stakeholders feel connected in a way to represent them

as a company. Their nostalgic market was a way for them to bring forth ways to brighten its

stakeholders and an inciteful way to bring about new creative yet genius marketing strategies in

ways to make their instant camera (instant film) stand out amongst other competitors. 

           For Polaroid, having strong connections with its stakeholders was very much induced by

nostalgia. But for its employees, Ken Williams and Caroline Hunter; sought out social injustice
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and diversity and inclusion throughout the company and had an antagonistic relationship with

Polaroid (culturally centered approach). Ken and Caroline saw behavior in the company and

boycotted international products that Polaroid was selling in South Africa through their

distributor. This ID-2 photographic system produced two color photographs to identify who the

person was or who the people were. Polaroid’s camera took several photos, allowing the

government to keep tabs on enslaving Africans. Polaroid’s employees caught on and invested a

lot of research in finding out why a company like Polaroid would do such things when they are

invoking positive feelings and emotions. Polaroid had to realize they are a company that operates

on visions of morals and values and not a company that evokes the slave trade. 

Identify the Potential Risks

To ensure social responsibility, all risk communication should be held to the standard of

significant choice (Ulmer, 2022). Polaroid itself became vulnerable to change because of

effective options through taking risks. “Good risk management fosters vigilance in times of calm

and instills discipline in times of crisis (Mlblevins, 2011).” Looking at long and short-term goals

of identifying the risk is crucial and beneficial because when you plan for all the risks available,

you can find ways to make the risks become prominent factors in success to avoid potential

crises. For Polaroid, the risks they took by having a nostalgic market made investors,

distributors, consumers, and sponsors feel welcomed because they thought of them as a positive

marketing schema. But the company went bankrupt when Polaroid didn’t examine its business

model and didn’t foresee the vision or values it had presented itself with by being innovative.

Their research and development team warned them that the digital era would diminish their

vintage mindset. Their innovators and artists saw that it might be true but refused to believe that
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change and thought that the digital world would never incorporate the instant film they produced.

Because their team didn’t invoke a positive innovation strategy, Polaroid fell flat on its feet to its

competitors, Fuji and Kodak. Polaroid’s mindless outlook created a risk they could not

overcome.

Adverse Risks that Polaroid faced included failure to innovate perfectively (in their case,

failure to innovate without questioning). Having a bad reputation for their brand and business

interruption (promoting nostalgia through the South African slave trade with ID photo cards),

increasing competition (Kodak and Fuji innovated to digital, leaving Polaroid as instant and non-

digital). Positive Risks that Polaroid made include competitive risks and (being first in the

business and allowing other competitors to be innovative to avoid monopoly) technology risks

(didn’t go digital because they didn’t want technology to destroy traditional patterns).

Provide Specific Guidelines for the Organization to Walk Through the Crisis (Tone/Style

and Communication Strategies)

To prevent risk and crises, we must unlearn the failures, recognize the risks (vicarious

learning), learn through failure, and observe success and failures (organizational memory). For

example, although Polaroid had predictable surprises from its research and development team, it

ignored its innovational strategies and persisted in innovating non-digital communication

strategies. Therefore, the crisis strategic communication plan and outcomes and objectives for

Polaroid are as follows:

To implement Polaroid's business recovery plan and start fresh from their crisis, they need

to understand that the world is ever-changing and that technology advances quickly over time.

To communicate this effectively, they would need to implement new team members (employees)
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for its innovative strategies, including people wanting to develop new technological cameras that

could function like the smartphone or video cameras we have today. Polaroid would need to

implement its mission strategy and communicate the proposition effectively by having a team

meeting daily laying out the mission statement ("To innovate new forms of hands-on traditional

digital photographic media). And in contrast, keeping the hands-on instant photographic

gratification to keep vintage relative to people of all ages.") to its employees. To prepare for

profit gains and losses, Polaroid will need to combine with other companies (mergers and

acquisitions) like Huawei or Samsung, who are already game changers in today's camera

technology. These mergers and acquisitions will help implement new business strategies and

goals for acquiring a new instant and digital technological innovation. For example, this

innovation would allow a smartphone to have a vintage style look while also being able to print

mini photos instantly after it has taken the picture on the smart device with an option to give an

instant image to a person's family or friends. This innovation would attract an older generation

(generation Y) and make new generations feel the instant gratification others felt in past times.

This new technology would require broad speculation of taking a digital device like a

smartphone or tablet and combining it with printing functions like a printer or a scanner (all-in-

one device).

Polaroid and Samsung must adhere to a diverse team through their merging process,

including excessive inclusion and diversity training courses for employee satisfaction. The

strategy will make people want to join in on business adventures. To adhere to its direct audience

from the past and the present future, it would need to implement new marketing and advertising
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ideas. By bringing in someone relative to the modern ways (Doja Cat or Dua Lipa) and bringing

in someone from the generation Y era (Lady Gaga or Katy Perry). This marketing and

advertising strategy would create a sense of vintage and modern looks needed to boost a modern

company like Samsung and a vintage-type company like Polaroid. Adhering to these innovations

will increase the profit margin for the new company and thrive a whole new audience of

consumers and customers. Introducing Samplaroid (Samsung and Polaroid merger and

acquisition brand name), the latest innovative technology company that creates vintage yet

modern style advancement that will create your photos instantly and digitally.

Having a new team of stakeholders understand the business's new functions will create an

interest in investing and promoting the new company's needs. The government (stakeholder) will

like the new idea because it promotes vintage-style efforts in the form of new technological

media innovations. Having a new business strategy will allow Polaroid to benefit from its past

crisis by exerting new acquisitions and merger with Samsung) ideas with their vintage, nostalgic

ways of thinking and innovations. This strategy will create new opportunities for Samsung to

strive instantly and allow Polaroid to operate in a renewal process. By emerging from its crisis of

being thought of as not being digitally innovative or diverse and not listening and learning from

its research and development team.

To make sure Polaroid is actively listening to its audience following its merger and

acquisition with Samsung, it will need to have a team of contact centers (hub) for each

department, with call centers available in an emergency or another crisis within its group. This

communication plan will include the HR teams listening to employees and their families, sales
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listening to its customers, purchasing department listening to its suppliers, media relations

listening to its news media, regulatory affairs listening to regulatory, emergency team response

listening to incident commands, community relations listening to the community and neighbors,

and management listening to elected officials and public agencies. Lastly, the company will need

to have information centers consisting of existing staff and technologies that field requests from

customers, employees, and others during regular business hours. The information center and its

technologies can push the information out to the audience and post information for online

reading. Having a script or script messages on risk management will tell what risks are involved,

how the team will understand the potential impacts of an incident, and what needs to be

addressed or not addressed to its stakeholders. Of course, stories will change as new information

becomes available about an incident or crisis. Still, it is good to document everything to ensure

that the risk assessment is detailed for what could, how could, when could, why could, etc.

To be aware of a crisis, Polaroid will incorporate holding messages. These messages are

important because they let your callers know that your organization is readily welcoming its

customer to the business. Updating holding messages will achieve your business goals and help

the company get great reviews on its social media accounts. Polaroid's new scripted holding

messages will include, "Innovating new instant camera film to print digitally through your

smartphone or any other digital smart device." "Developing a mutual communication program in

the app store or play store to introduce facts, questions, and concerns about new digital and

instant photography use on digital devices." Building a nostalgia market (use of past imagery)

and a central market strategy (producing audience attention) benefiting the childhood feel themes
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to a sense of bringing more audience retention through ownership and brand integrity." The

specific crisis-communicating message for Samplaroid's stakeholders is "We as a company thrive

past imagery innovations and will implement new branding and technological advances to make

the best products available to our customers and bring a promising future for you and our team."

To make these messages effective, Samplaroid will send notifications to its customers and team

by text messages, social media message alerts, and through the apps on Google Play and the App

Store. The alerts will be responsive and quickly produce an outcome for any situation abroad.

When communicating to your stakeholders about a crisis, Polaroid and Samsung will

have to use a noncorporate tone of voice which would minimize the situation through traditional

platforms like phone calls. If they take a serious style or a tone that is not overly optimistic, they

can balance the heaviness, dramatization, and extent of the crisis through their responses. On the

other hand, when communicating to your stakeholders about a crisis through social media, you

need a corporate response that is honest and empathetic but not overly emotional. Having

available resources is also very important when a crisis occurs or needs to be reported within the

company. All employees, staff, and management should have access to different forms of

resources. By including telephones, electronic notification system, electronic mail, fax machines,

webmaster access to the company website to post updates, access to social media accounts,

access to local area network, secure remote server, message template library and printers, access

to the crisis communication plan, site and building diagrams, copiers, pens, pencils, paper,

clipboards, and other stationery supplies, message boards, and forms for documenting events as

they unfold (Ready, 2021).

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Samplaroid, with the help of its nostalgic and channel marketing strategy (mixing

strategy), will help align the crisis of certain situations by implementing messages that are

available for its customers and team members through its productive crisis response team.

Samplaroid will produce a low-pitched tone of voice that is friendly, honest, and serious so that

customers in response to a crisis don't feel that the information and its crisis response team are

immature or uncertain. Samplaroid will also provide the proper resources for its groups

(information specialists, management, and call centers) and its customers so that messages

(translations) are not construed. These crisis response messages will be processed to

stakeholders' applications in the form of several dialectical languages relevant to the area or

location of the crisis.

Finally, Polaroid will have a business that will strive for success without the implications

of failure due to being able to keep up its modern culture through Samsung’s mixed marketing

strategy. Polaroid will finally realize that for their company to go into renewal, they must see

their past crisis as an opportunity for success when channeling forward. Samsung will also

benefit from its nostalgic marketing strategy due to having personal mail over email, door

hangings over blogs, magazines over digital content, and even billboards over advertising on

online channels. This strategy will be on the flip side for Polaroid; while benefiting from email

over mail, blogs over door hangings, digital content over magazines, and online advertising on

online channels over billboards. Polaroid will also be able to “throwback” its original instant

products with Samsung’s already innovative mix of products that are relevant to the modern

ways of technological advancements for the future. Overall, this whole strategy will give

Polaroid the boost it needs to be in alert mode for risks over innovation and time for preparing
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for a crisis. Because this time around, Samsung will ensure Polaroid listens to its R&D

department because of its mergers and acquisitions. This risk and crisis communication plan will

prevent what may cause an overall crisis in their existence. Organizations that base their crisis

communication on strong positive organizational values are more likely to experience renewal

(Ulmer, 2022).

Bitzer and Smith

Bitzer cites, "A speech will be rhetorical when it is a response to the kind of situation

which is rhetorical." (Bitzer, 2014). Agreeably, I concur. Rhetorical situations beget rhetorical

explanations. For example, when there is no node to utilize, the grid becomes a free game, and

the system's operating system becomes subject to different malware. Polaroid allowed its

competitors to over-run their ideas and take action because of social responsibility within the

company's mission of having a nostalgic hierarchy-type business. Widely misunderstood and

often maligned, rhetoric, in the simplest sense, is the effective use of language in speech or

writing (Smith, 2007). Polaroid did not communicate, learn, or listen to its research and

developing team. Although Polaroid was a perfectionist at the instant camera features, they

refused to believe that digital cameras would beat their instant knowledge of how the generation

perceived information differently from that of the Millennials generation era. Polaroid

misunderstood its conceptions and fell off the rocker's face down into the sand to their

competitors Kodak and Fuji and thus to the fallout to the other technologies of intelligent

devices. Smith cites, "Crisis communication with the public is critically important and warrants

the attention it has received in the literature" (Smith, 2007). Agreeably, I concur with this

statement. When someone draws attention to something that misrepresents their belief systems,
 Roberts-Johnson (21)

they will announce to the public that the situation is a crisis and needs to be addressed to

everyone to know that this is a wrong facet of what is right or wrong with the piece of literature.

If Polaroid had listened to its employees Ken and Caroline's literature about their acts on social

injustices, they would not have created a bad reputation for their brand for promoting nostalgia.

Polaroid did not realize that their distributor was promoting profits through the South African

slave trade by using ID photo cards-branding the slave trade through film.
 Roberts-Johnson (22)

References

BOOK

Ulmer, Robert R., et al. Effective Crisis Communication: Moving from Crisis to Opportunity.

SAGE, 2022.

ARTICLES

Bitzer, Lloyd F. The Rhetorical Situation, 10 Feb. 2014, pp. 1–14.

Mlblevins. “4 Remarkable Benefits of Risk Management You Weren't Aware Of.” Business

Zeal, 25 Dec. 2011, https://businesszeal.com/benefits-of-risk-management.

Polaroid, n.d. “About Us.” Polaroid, 2022, https://www.polaroid.com/en_us/about-us.

Ramirez, Ainissa. “How Two African-American Employees Exposed Polaroid's Role in

Apartheid South Africa.” Science Friday, 23 Apr. 2020,

https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/polaroid-south-africa/.

Ready. “Crisis Communications Plan.” Crisis Communications Plan | Ready.gov, 17 Feb. 2021,

https://www.ready.gov/crisis-communications-plan.

Smith, Donald C. Lessons from Katrina: Crisis Communication and Rhetorical Protocol, June

2007, pp. 1–6.

 Roberts-Johnson (23)

Facing History & Ourselves, Facing History & Ourselves. “What Is Ethical? The Case of

Polaroid.” Facing History and Ourselves, 17 Oct. 2018,

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/what-ethical-case-polaroid.

Williams, Nate. “The 5 Real Reasons Polaroid Failed.” History, 25 Aug. 2022, https://history-

computer.com/the-x-real-reasons-polaroid-failed/.