Picture-Perfect

At first, I thought there might be an Oprah-ish vibe to the idea of Nikon giving away 200 cameras to residents of Georgetown, S.C. (a.k.a. "Picturetown") and documenting the results: It's a stunt, plain and simple, and the townsfolk oblige by screaming and jumping up and down until the professional cameras recording the freebie cameras leave. (Or, in the unfortunate instance of Oprah's car giveaway, the tax bills came.)But the upshot here is surprisingly big, human and genuinely moving. It works from every angle. For the recipients, it's that old chestnut of the gift that keeps on giving; they get a serious camera, previously reserved for the digerati and professional photographers, and with it a lifelong gift of creative possibilities; for Nikon, "Picturetown'' is a user-generated, organic, 360-degree experiential campaign that covers nontraditional ad bases, plus writes, photographs and keeps updating itself.Even better, it sells cold, hard digital technology in a way that comes off as personal, individual and, at times, dare I say, profound. It also succeeds strategically in moving Nikon almost exclusively to digital and the consumer side (perhaps to the chagrin of the pros) and shows amateurs that an expensive camera like the Nikon D40 ($499), which previously would have seemed intimidating, if even on their radar, is easy to use and worth every penny. The tagline: "Where ordinary people take extraordinary pictures."The TV executions—which drive viewers to www. stunningnikon.com/picturetown— start with a beautiful shot of a sea of black Nikon D40 cameras, complete with neck strap and changeable lenses, laid out on bare wood tables. The locals file into the hall and, laughing and smiling, pick them up. They seem genuinely thrilled. Then they start shooting—and shooting—and the shooting turns into the non-sell sell.Really, if any other brand's advertising concentrated on images of smiling firemen, white picket fences, the American flag, a cheerleader named Britney and a toddler getting his first haircut, I'd say, "How 20 years ago! How many times can we revive 'Morning in America'"? But the small films (seen on TV and the Internet) resonate with emotion and authenticity. With director Sam Bayer, the McCann Erickson team chose a beautiful, historic, coastal community—an inherently pretty place to shoot. (A "jewel of a little town'' is how one resident puts it.) But the human-interest part, where we get to know the diverse residents, is what really connects.The agency and production team was only there for a week, but for some of the locals, the experience, without exaggeration, was life transforming. One girl, holding her camera, says, "I might even make a career out of this.'' And last week, a man wrote to the company to say that he grew up in Georgetown, had been away for many years and after seeing the commercials went back and reunited with his (now no longer estranged) father. (See, there is an Oprah angle!)The microsite is designed to play off the grassroots approach and it does, beautifully. It allows the images to tell the story of the people and the town. Not incidentally, it also documents this moment in time, in this town, as clearly as Walker Evans did in his photography collection, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. But in sharp contrast to those historic photos of sharecroppers barely getting by, life is good in this town, where people fish, work and get a kick out of their kids. The site offers gallery after gallery of the actual photos taken, and one of the cool devices is, after pressing on any particular shot, we also get a thumbnail sketch of the shooter. Also, every photo can be downloaded or forwarded to a friend.There's also a print component, which is unremarkable: Ads show people proudly holding their blown-up photos, which seems like every other camera campaign. But bound on top of each ad is a 3-D insert, a pop-up cardboard camera that is the actual size of the Nikon D40. It dimensionalizes the camera and literally puts it in people's hands, so they can see that it's not like the heavy tank of old.There's something really satisfying about basing an ad campaign on the real stuff of user-generated content. It bulks up the experience and democratizes the process, not only for picture takers, but also for the viewers. In the end, what we have is something new and delightful, a form of cutting-edge technological folk art of the people, for the people and by the people.

Brand Marketing

Picture-Perfect

Barbara Lippert

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Barbara Lippert