The Campaign

In order to whet customers travel desires and get them to engage with the brand and Canon 80D, the company decided that it would create an experential mechanic that literally brings the world to their customer’s finger tips. By partnering with Google and leverage Google map’s street view, Canon could place a virtual Canon 80D in everyone’s hand. A unique experiential website was conceived and created that allowed users to experience the product virtually online. Users could compose pictures like they would while using an SLR in some of the most picturesque locations available on Google maps and even allowed them to add some post processing. What made the activity really engaging was travellers could then virtually travel to destinations that they’d always wanted to and craft their own virtual memories by taking pictures of scenic landscapes and slice of life shots. Users could snap away without any restrictions and

Creative Execution

A dedicated team of experts from Google and `Canon worked hand-in-hand to ensure that the entire digital experience was seamless and engaging. The website was built on Google’s street view API and allowed customers to travel to the far corners of the globe in search for that perfect shot and compose photos on a virtual EOS 80D for that one perfect shot with their favourite camera brand. Entries were then collated into a gallery to be showcased. Some shortlisted entries even called out salient features of the camera in the photograph’s descriptions. Four lucky winners won a free trip to visit the destination that they had recced.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

The website enabled people to engage with the brand in a way they never had before. There were 856 unique entries, while there were 145368 users who interacted with the site as people recced over hundreds of places from the deepest oceans to the tallest mountains for stunning photographs. 21% of these users came back to engage with the site more than once. This engaging platform of delivery helped the brand generate approximately 50,000 hours’ worth of brand engagement. The website was promoted across the GDN network with video mastheads, video pre-rolls, rich media mastheads, skyscraper and leader board banners, on YouTube with a low CPC of $0.22 and an actual CPV of $0.07. Ads were targeted at both shutterbugs and technophiles for relevancy. But most importantly, Canon not only fuelled a latent need, it inspired people by providisng them endless opportunities to take that perfect shot. 

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

We needed to find a way to engage consumers and let them sample our product before the actual launch of the camera.

Travel. Everyone lusts over it, especially when you live on an island like Singapore. The travel trip is often that one time when the smartphone stays in the pocket and the camera gets out of the closet for a workout. Yet most Singaporeans don’t have the time or budget to be able to see and experience the world like they want. Fewer still own a camera worthy of such a trip. Canon’s potential customers are often hesitant to step into a showroom for a hands-on experience with a new SLR. The fear of if you break it, you’ve bought it means a lot of potential customers fail to experience the Canon 80D first-hand. Even though it’s on the top of their agenda, Canon needed to be able to engage with its customers giving them what their hearts desired at a price their pockets would love - nothing.