City Surfers is the virtual photoshoot that transforms your phone into a pro camera. Jump onto the banks of the river Eisbach in Munich and shoot the world’s best river surfers, riding a man made wave, at midnight.

To demonstrate some of the main differences between your mobile and a real camera we hack your phone using our website and Canon’s latest kit. Now you can shoot incredible fast-action photography in low light and use an optical zoom to take photos you couldn’t possibly capture on your mobile.

How does shooting the world’s best river surfers, riding a man made wave, in the heart of Munich at midnight sound? But here’s the problem, your phone sucks at shooting fast action, especially in low light.

The City Surfers experience was created by hacking together Canon’s latest kit and engineering custom camera rigs so you can shoot the action and zoom in high resolution using your phone. To make this website accessible we took the most familiar functionality of mobile camera apps so you can start shooting straight away. You can pinch-to-zoom, view shots from your camera roll and share your favourite photographs with friends. We even shot sequences using an ultra-wide fisheye lens so you can explore the world of the City Surfers in 180º.

We created a series of 15-second how-tos and kit tips for Instagrammers, and used Facebook to challenge you to shoot the perfect shot within the City Surfers website to win an M10 mirrorless camera.

For our core audience we created video content for pro-photographers and cinematographers. The usual suspects of print, outdoor and display also played their role in bringing even more people into the world of our City Surfers.

Engagement:

• 78,022,331 campaign video views & 36,639,025 completed views

• Campaign delivered +108% impressions above expected (451m vs 217m)

• Campaign delivered 4.6m clicks vs 2.9m expected

• Average 4 minute dwell time on site.

• 45,549,918 engagements in social. Social performance of +24% actions vs predicted (46m vs 37m)

• Youtube masthead achieved 1.53m clicks, with a CTR of 1.09%

Awareness:

• Target market awareness of the campaign, up 12% on individual social asset recognition

• The City Surfers creative changed perception from more traditional to more cool and adventurous

• Strongest campaign within the ‘Come & See’ platform at driving short-term motivation to buy

• Extremely high long term brand building potential, underpinned by relevance and resonance of the campaign with the key audiences.