The underwater camera market has been flooded with inferior products and waterproof phones. Sony needed to refocus attention on their Cybershot TX30 as sales were declining.

To show people how easy it is to take great underwater photos with this camera, we gave it to an amateur photographer we knew could grab attention.

She’s called Rambo.

She’s an octopus.

Our idea: “The Octographer” – an octopus we’d train to take underwater photos using the Cybershot TX30. We’d then use our audience’s natural fascination with the creature and PR the project to generate attention for the camera.

For 6 weeks, an animal behaviorist trained Rambo the octopus to use a TX-30 using a specially designed rig.

After over 100 hours of training she was ready to share her new skills with the world. We introduced Rambo on NZ’s most popular current affairs show and invited people to visit Rambo’s purpose built studio at New Zealand’s largest aquarium to get a photo by the world’s first Octographer. We filmed Rambo working with the TX30 and created a never before seen piece of content that could be shared by our fascinated audience.

The Octographer was covered by everyone from the New York Times and CNN to the Discovery Channel and National Geographic. Hundreds of photo blogs and photography websites also picked up the story. The amazing underwater performance by Rambo and the TX30 was Sony’s most successful product demonstration of all time and the most shared camera campaign of all time. The Cyber-shot TX30 went from 85th to the No1 most searched product on Sony’s website and the camera sold out in New Zealand in 48 hours.