Leo Burnett launched a new campaign for Canon Australia with a spot featuring six photographers photographing the same man from different perspectives.
The online ad, entitled “Decoy — A portrait session with a twist” plays on the idea of perspective, giving it multiple meanings. At the beginning of the session, the photographers are told differing stories on their subject’s background. So while one thinks the subject, Michael, is a self-made millionaire, another thinks he’s a recovering alcoholic, and another thinks he’s a fisherman. As you may have guessed, each photographer created a drastically different portrait of Michael. When they examine their work, the idea behind the exercise is also revealed, which one photographer notes makes sense since the photos the other photographers took didn’t seem to match the character he was told he was meant to capture.
The ad marks the beginning of Leo Burnett’s “The Lab” campaign for the brand, the first in a series of six such experiments which will roll out over the next month with the stated goal (and tagline) of “Shifting creative thinking behind the lens.” If the initial effort is any indication, the series will see the brand pursuing a “branded film” direction that feels more addressing photography subjects rather than a more traditional advertising approach. And Canon can only hope that the rest of the series catches on the way “Decoy” already seems to have. The ad has exceeded two million views on YouTube since being uploaded a week ago, with a decisively positive ratio of likes as well. It would have been nice if Leo Burnett and Canon had credited the photographers involved in the actual video, however, as not all viewers will bother to read its description (where they are all thanked).
Credits:
Creative Agency: Leo Burnett
Senior Business Director: Laura Dowling
Producer: Adrian Jung
Executive Creative Director: Vince Lagana, Grant MacAloon
Creative Director: Kieran Ots
Copywriter: Bjoern Ingenleuf
Business Manager: Laura Cervin
Art Director: Stuart Tobin
Group Business Director: Jonny Bucknall
Production Company: The Pool Collective
Prducer: Petrea Lambert, Emma de Teliga, Melissa Scurry
Director: Chris Ireland
Executive Producer: Cameron Gray