The Campaign

Nikon needs to build affinity with the younger photography enthusiasts today who are constantly looking for the coolest innovation. With minimal budget of US$15,000, we need something exciting to start the conversation on social media that would excite them and get them to appreciate Nikon's brand philosophy of "At the heart of the image" again. We created a new camera accessory that allows the camera to take a picture whenever the heart is excited. To launch this project, we applied it on a dog to demonstrate this new innovation which allows anyone or anything to take a photo. This experience of the dog was captured in a charming online film shared on social media such as Nikon's Facebook network, that drives traffic to a microsite which demonstrates how this technology works and people can sign up to trial the prototype. On the website, more forms of innovative photography is shared.

Success of the Campaign

The video garnered 863,441 views in just 4 weeks and the campaign created worldwide buzz for Nikon valued at more than $3million worth of PR. It was covered by the likes of CNET, Fortune, AOL, YahooTech and more than 1,180 other websites across the globe such as US, Japan, Russia, Italy, China etc. The video was shared more than 6,000 times and created more than 10,000 comments of which 6:1 are positive towards Nikon. This is an amazing result for $0 media spent and is the most effective campaign for Nikon.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

Heartography is powered by a heart-rate band that measures the heart beat and sends this data via blue-tooth to a specially created camera accessory attached to the Nikon camera which triggers a picture. To launch this project, we applied it on a dog and allowed it to snap pictures whenever it got excited. This experience of the dog was captured in a charming online film shared on social media such as Nikon's Facebook network, that drives traffic to a website (http://www.heartography.nikon-asia.com) which demonstrates how this technology works and people can sign up to trial the prototype. On the website, more forms of innovative photography is shared. A PR strategy was also in place to promote the campaign with photography forums, tech blogs and other related platforms.

Nikon has been a leader in photography since 1917 but in the last 10years, it has been losing market shares to other brands such as Canon. Apart from competing through price-point, Nikon believes that it needs to leverage its brand heritage to build affinity with the younger photography enthusiasts who are constantly looking for the coolest innovation. "At The Heart Of The Image” is Nikon’s tagline. They believe that each and every person has a unique sense of the world - joy, sorrow, wonder, hope etc. And images can capture these nuances of the heart vividly in the visible world. This believe drives Nikon’s constant innovation to capture better pictures/videos. So how can we share this vision and get people to fall in love with the brand again? We created Heartography - An innovative camera accessory that enables Nikon cameras to capture pictures triggered by what excites the heart.