Signals

Global – Polaroid is turning anti-digital sentiment into a summer brand platform with its latest campaign, The Best of Summer is Analog. Supporting the launch of the Go Generation 3 camera, the campaign centres on a provocative Coney Island beach billboard reading: ‘Go jump in some water before the data centers drink it all up.’

The installation forms part of a wider outdoor campaign running in London, New York and South Korea. Campaign lines such as ‘You can’t bask in blue light’ and ‘Dance like nobody is recording’ frame analogue experience as a counterpoint to screen fatigue rather than nostalgia.

This echoes analysis from our Analogue Summer report, where we explore how brands are framing offline living as aspirational through campaigns that position disconnection, presence and real-world experiences as the new status symbols for Gen Z. 

Polaroid has also paid 12 creators to temporarily step away from their screens and to announce their social media breaks through handwritten notes. They were sent a ‘sensory seeding kit’, a box which opens to reveal a miniature garden where birdsong plays, flowers pop up and there are scents to enjoy and moss to feel, extending the campaign’s pro-human message into a tactile experience.