The situation:

The camera market is declining and at same time the amount of photos and videos that are being put into the world have exploded as smartphones have taken over. In turn, more and more people have discovered photography and have starting to take it more seriously. But to turn it into a career is challenging without the right gear and knowledge is near impossible.

"A declining market but rising interest."

The task:

Canon wanted to capitalise on the rise of the creator economy and position itself as the go-to brand for aspiring creators who were looking to take their photography to the next level by supporting them with both equipment and knowledge.

The objectives:

- 100 applications

- 1 million total reach

- 2 % engagement rate

- Influencer reach index 200

- 5 industry media clippings

Asking people to quit their job and in-turn help them achieve their dream career.

More people than ever want to quit their jobs. The great resignation has spread across the planet simultaneously with the pandemic. This combined with the insight that many people want to take their passion to the next level as a part of creator economy, we wanted to create a platform to help people take the leap in a way that would provide the security that keeps many away from taking the leap.

Four creators from the Canon community was put together with a professional mentor who would learn them all they needed to know to be successful - and gave them their first paid assignment and professional equipment.

It all unfolded live for the rest of the Canon community where people could ask questions and share their experiences while making the information for everyone.

"Solving a challenge for the target audience"

Data:

The campaign was based on the mega trend of the rising creator economy and the great resignation: 40 % of the global workforce wanted to quit their job in 2021 and the most searched job description in 2021 was content creator. Through qualitative interviews content creators we mapped their challenges.

Target audience:

The target for this campaign was quite clear and narrow: content creators. And more narrowly aspiring content creators. This is mostly younger people who are living in urban areas.

Approach:

With this campaign we wanted tap into the big latent market of aspiring creators by not just nudging them to take their careers (and camera gear) to the next level but actually give them the tools to do it.

Call to action:

There was a simply CTA, send us your resignation letter and we will help build your dream career.

Implementation:

As Canon already have a solid following of creators on its Instagram page this became the main platform the campaign would live on.

Timeline:

The campaign launched with a "call for resignation" where creators could apply to the mentoring program by sending us their resignation letter. Four lucky creators were selected. Shortly after the live mentoring started. It was during the heights of the pandemic so unfortunately no in-person mentoring was possible.

Placement:

The campaign ran on mainly on Instagram organically. Paid activations were made on Instagram and YouTube - a platform where creators are very active. Job postings were created on LinkedIn and other recruiting sites - using these platforms in a creative and innovative way to attract creators.

Scale:

As the campaign was developed for Canon Nordic it targeted the Nordic region and was limited to this region. However, organically it reached audiences across the world.

The response rate was overwhelming. Over 300 people sent their application - well over the goal of 100. This showed that we really hit a nerve among the aspiring creator community.

Over 12 million people were reached by the campaign which mainly driven by organic reach underlining the interest.

During the campaign over 1 million interactions were made and the goal of a 2% engagement rate was well exceeded.

The main influencer used in the campaign experienced a reach metric that exploded to index 523.

A range of major industry news outlets covered the campaign spreading the word about Canon's new initiative to support the creator community.