Right On, Nikon
Nikon did what every major brand should be doing...it got out of its own way and let the real people that counted do the talking: their own consumers.
Here's the frame-by-frame:
- Nikon sent a bunch of their D80 cameras to a group of Flickr users and let them snap to their heart's content
- They took a bunch of submissions and used them as part of a 3-page spread, which ran in places like BusinessWeek (see PDF)
For what seems like centuries now, I've been pleading with marketers to use the original creations from their own consumers as actual content (advertising if you must) It's great to finally see this in aciton...
What I really love about this campaign is the following:
- This is CGC with a purpose. No "do our jobs for us", but rather "meet us halfway"
- Speaking of which, the agency found a great balance here in terms of working with consumers
- This speaks to all 3 new marketing roles for advertising, namely "to involve", "to empower" and "to demonstrate"
- It further speaks to the rise of product (or product as brand). In this campaign, the brand experience is all about the product in action and therefore in context.
Personally, I think they could have done a little more with the individual profiles e.g. stunningnikon.com/heather versus stunningnikon.com/joe, but perhaps that's what the countdown is all about (in which case, where's the RSS/e-mail opt-in?)
All in all, terrific.
