Polaroid targets AI data centers with anti-tech billboards

Polaroid’s anti-AI – Polaroid’s new international ad campaign puts analog life on a billboard stage—using handwritten anti-tech lines in high-traffic tech locations, including a Coney Island message urging people to “jump in some water before the data centers drink it all up.” The

For days, people in a rush—walking past storefronts, ducking into airports, commuting through busy city streets—have been met with one blunt idea on a white board: put the phone down.

Polaroid’s latest international ad campaign leans into handwritten notes and minimalist photography. built around anti-tech phrases meant to make passersby rethink their relationship with technology. The billboards have been deliberately placed in high-traffic areas tied to tech culture. including near Apple Stores and Google offices in New York City and London. as well as in busy city centers and airports.

Some of the messages are aimed at the habits of modern life. One billboard reads, “No one on their deathbed ever said: I wish I’d spent more time on my phone.” Others target social media more directly, with lines such as “Real stories. Not stories & reels.”

In a press release, Patricia Varella, brand and creative director at Polaroid, said: “We are analog creatures, built to connect through our senses. But the more we lose ourselves in digital algorithms, the more we drift away from empathy and real connection.”

Then comes the line that’s pulling the loudest attention: a message explicitly tied to AI infrastructure. “Go jump in some water before the data centers drink it all up,” the ad reads. The billboard was placed in New York’s Coney Island with the ocean in the background.

The company’s beachside choice appears to have struck a nerve for supporters. Many embraced the Coney Island ad, arguing the messaging matches Polaroid’s broader stance on analog technology. “It’s a camera company. Of course they’re anti-AI??. It’s not like they’re saying ‘kill all shareholders’,” one user said on X. Another added: “Their brand is all about living in the moment, so its totally on brand.”.

But the backlash conversation runs alongside the praise, and it’s not only about whether the message is clever. It’s also about whether the issue—public opposition to AI and data centers—has become an easy marketing lane.

One X user framed it with a sharp cynicism: “It’s pretty good for them—AI is their enemy (to sell Polaroids, people need to take pictures IRL), data centers are public enemy #1, and their whole brand revolves around living in the moment.”

Digital culture journalist Taylor Lorenz also weighed in, noting: “We’re at the point where brands are using AI/data center backlash for social media marketing to drive engagement.”

That skepticism lands in a wider reality. In a recent Gallup poll, 71% of Americans said they would be opposed to the building of a data center in their area—an outlook that makes data centers even less popular than nuclear power centers at the moment.

The campaign, built to feel personal and handwritten, is asking the public to argue about technology in public spaces. For Polaroid, it’s a pitch for an analog life. For critics. it’s a question of whether a cultural fight over AI infrastructure is being turned into something a brand can sell—right alongside cameras designed for pictures taken in the moment.

Polaroid ad campaign AI backlash data centers analog technology billboards Coney Island Apple Stores Google offices Gallup poll social media marketing