Polaroid Launches Gaga Printer At Bloomies

By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 5/26/2011

 New York - Polaroid gave Bloomingdales' Big Apple shoppers something to go Gaga about Thursday.

Polaroid president Scott W. Hardy presents the GL10 Instant Mobile Photo Printer ($149.99) as part of a formal sendoff highlighted with a six-window showcase for the next two weeks at the Bloomingdales Lexington Ave. store in New York.

The new owners of the popular instant camera brand celebrated the second phase of their collaboration with the Bloomingdales Department Store chain by leveraging a six display window merchandising presentation in the Lexington Ave. storefront here Wednesday. The celebration marked the launch of the Lady Gaga inspired GL10 Instant Mobile photo printer, one of several products inspired by the musings of the pop icon for the company's new Grey Label (GL) line.

The printer is among the first fruits of a design/consulting collaboration between the flamboyant pop star's Haus of Gaga creative design sideline.

Bloomingdales, which worked with Polaroid in a similar fashion last year to launch the latest spin on the traditional Land Camera (the Polaroid 300),  got the exclusive launch rights to the GL10, ahead of other retailers who won't see the product until mid June.

Scott W. Hardy, Polaroid president, told TWICE, that the fashion-centric department store sold hundreds of units of the Polaroid 300 in one day at the Lexington Ave. store, alone.

"We both saw together that with the right product that is positioned correctly for their clientele that we could actually have a very effective marketing strategy," Hardy said, adding that Bloomingdales is partnering with Polaroid on a display-window program, which the store flagged with a print ad running across the bottom of two pages in Wednesday's edition of the New York Times. The store paid for the ad spot.

Bloomies will maintain the six-window Lady Gaga showcase for two weeks, Hardy said, adding that his company's association with Bloomingdales was an extension of the company's new marketing direction that aims to blend fashion with photo technology in an effort to attract fashion-focused, socially engaged young adults, who are helping to drive today's photo industry. 

"Actually, Polaroid has had a long-established history with the fashion industry," Hardy said. "Polaroid photographs are a key part of the whole fashion-model process, where they take headshots of people, print them out and put them on boards."

The purse-sized portable wireless printer that is based on Zink paper technology made its debut at International CES last January.

The GL10 carries a $149.99 suggested retail price, and is said to offer intuitive features to easily produce Polaroid Classic Border, full bleed and contemporary 3-by-4 inch photos in under a minute.

The portable unit weighs less than 15 ounces, and will wirelessly connect to most cell phones with Bluetooth support, and to digital cameras using a USB cable.

The GL10's internal rechargeable battery prints up to 40 images per charge.