Okay, so what’s the excuse for featuring this Nikon advertising campaign, due for launch in April 2010?

Two reasons:

The first is that we use Nikon equipment exclusively in shooting live shows, week in, week out. Right now no other manufacturer of professional digital camera gear can match Nikon in coping with the many major challenges thrown up by indoor live performance. Canon comes pretty close but the current reality is that in both camera bodies and lenses, Nikon, after a few years in the wilderness for this kind of work, came up trumps nearly three years ago, and have continued to lead. Imagery is key for us, so our equipment is fundamental in achieving the best possible live performance results.

The second reason is that the campaign is an excellent one, and certainly one of the best I’ve seen in recent years. It covers TV, press and features some excellent photography. It’s also very astute in that it has inbuilt flexiblity to adapt to new events, new products, new images, new and existing markets. In short, it’s a slam-dunk of an advertising campaign created and launched at a time when advertising is really not that great or memorable.

So well done Nikon, and the creatives for a top job. Now all I need to see is some brand spanking new pro bodies…

The Press Releases

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, March 8, 2010 - Nikon today launches a new advertising campaign throughout Europe, which highlights the brand’s rich heritage of professionalism and innovation, along with its appreciation of the fun and emotional rewards of capturing special moments. The new ‘I AM Nikon’ campaign incorporates television, print and digital media and positions Nikon ‘at the heart of the image’ and the creative photography process.

The TV spots, the first of which airs in France today, were shot on location in Egypt, Germany and Spain over nine days by Ralf Schmerberg. Of the 2000GB of material captured, most was filmed using Nikon’s D3S, the world’s first movie-enabled FX format camera with 720p HD Movie, including frame grab capability.

Ralf Schmerberg said: “We were shooting in some pretty tough and varied conditions so it was important to have a tough, extreme performance camera. We were able to exploit the D3S’ ability to provide low noise performance in very low light conditions (without using flash) and got some incredible images.”

Ralf continued: “Shooting this campaign was a great challenge. The D3S provided quality images and movies across a range of locations, including a desert, a wedding, a nightclub and the Pyramids in Egypt. What really inspired me was the way in which we were able to switch from capturing still images to recording HD movies, depending on the situation. The fact that we could shoot high quality movies on a normal DSLR sized piece of kit was also extremely useful as negated the need for lots of equipment and tripods. This proved particularly useful for one shoot we did at a street market in Cairo as it meant we were able to shoot relatively anonymously and naturally without drawing huge crowds and the change in dynamic that can bring.”

Vincent Munier, the French wildlife photographer more commonly seen behind a camera, makes an appearance in the campaign. Of his participation in the project, he said:

“It was a wonderful experience shooting in the desert in Egypt, particularly as I am more used to working in arctic conditions, in the snow. Being surrounded by the white desert sand was a completely new environment for me to test the new Nikon D3S in extremely challenging light conditions. For me to be in front of the camera instead of behind it was also a new experience.”

The print advertising campaign was shot by Sven Jacobsen on location in South Africa using Nikon D3X camera, with NIKKOR 35mm, 85mm and 28-70mm zoom lenses.

The Nikon D3S enables professionals to take control of the unpredictable and extends the possibilities for action photographers everywhere. Built upon the widely acclaimed Nikon D3, the D3S advances low light photography to another level and sets in motion new creative options for multi-media movie shooting. The D3S features a completely re-designed 12.1 effective megapixel image sensor, whilst the seven stop ISO range of 200 - 12,800 enables image and movie capture in extremely low ambient light conditions, with minimal processing to reduce sharpness and detail, which is essential for today’s news and sports photographers.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, March 8, 2010- Nikon Europe today launches a new advertising campaign which has the seal of approval from global popstar, Robbie Williams. The ‘I AM Nikon’ campaign premieres in France today and features the latest range of Nikon COOLPIX cameras. The TV ads are aimed at bringing Nikon’s rich heritage of professionalism and innovation to a wider audience of aspiring photographers.

Various pop culture and historic moments are referenced in the spot, including a scene depicting a baby’s real first steps similar to the historic first walk on the Moon. Both momentous steps are of equal importance and worth preserving. In another part of the campaign, Robbie Williams turns the camera on his crowd of fans during a concert, alongside the statement ‘I AM Alive’.

The campaign plays on Nikon’s existing tagline “At the heart of the image” by taking a behind-the-scenes look at what this statement means to its customers, asking the audience: “Who are you with Nikon?” The result is a range of real-life scenes in which people from all over Europe show their response to this question. The advertising campaign was shot in South Africa, Egypt, Spain and Germany.

Additional scenes in the campaign include ‘I AM Snow White’, for which a real-life Spanish bride allowed her final pre-wedding preparations to be filmed, ‘I AM Here’, showing holidaymakers exploring the Egyptian pyramids, and ‘I AM Part of the World’, featuring people from across the globe interacting with each other using the internet and their Nikon cameras.

US artist Benjamin Cooper provides the soundtrack to the campaign, with a song called ‘Welcome Home’.

Commenting on the campaign, Birgitta Olson, General Manager of Marketing Communications said: “We feel that this campaign really gets to the core of what it means to be a Nikon photographer. By using real people in real situations - regardless of photography experience, ethnicity, circumstances or geography - we hope to remind our audience that they are at the heart of the image.”

Olson continued: “We hope the ‘I AM’ campaign will inspire our customers and help to extend the legacy of the Nikon brand to a wider audience - regardless of their photography experience.”

Look out for the campaign, which will run throughout Europe across television, cinema, print and digital media. For more information, go to www.iamnikon.com

Click on this link for the Shakenstir Photo Gallery to see what Nikon helps us do:

http://www.shakenstir.co.uk/index.php/gallery/