To encourage photographers to rip up the rulebook of traditional photography and start discovering their inner creative voice we created ‘The Lab’ - a series of experiences and content designed to shift creative thinking behind the lens.

Each experience was designed from the ground up to not only be truly inspirational for the photographers participating, but also to create a story that would inspire a wider audience.

And while THE LAB was focused on photography, each experiment revealed a universal creative insight that appealed to a much broader audience: that our perception has a powerful impact on the images we capture, that surprising creative results can be found when we're forced to push past our most obvious ideas, and that even the most uninspiring situations and settings can hold unique creative potential when we approach them with an open mind.

Implementation

We recruited six photographers from our enthusiast audience for each experiment, without telling them what was to unfold on the day.

These participants effectively became ambassadors for our brand, so offering them an authentic experience was a high priority. As such we used unobtrusive filming techniques to capture their reactions and responses as well as the remarkable images they created in extraordinary circumstances.

We used niche targeting to seed the experiments to creative influencers. The content was then featured in a popular Australian creative blog, as well as promoted across Twitter and Facebook.

Timeline

The experiments were released episodically; Decoy was launched November 3, Evolution was launched on December 11, and Blank was launched on January 21.

Placement

Paid editorial support was provided on Lost at E Minor, garnering 6,560 views. The video was also supported on Canon Australia’s YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter account.

To date, THE LAB has totalled more than 8.2 million views, with 160,000+ social engagements.

92% of views were embedded on external domains, a clear indication of its appeal to a broader creative audience as it was embedded on 3,300+ editorial sites and blogs.

THE LAB appeared on news sites including the Daily Mail, Buzzfeed and Mashable; articles on photography sites including Shutterbug, PetaPixel, and MyModernMet; and in publications from Japan, France, Russia, Italy, and Brazil, showing that the content has universal appeal and reached a global audience – all achieved with minimal spend, with only 4% of views being the result of paid media.

THE LAB shifted Canon’s role from a product manufacturer to a creative instigator, sparking debate and ultimately championing a more thought-provoking approach to photography.