Intuition Media Group collaborated with our longtime client, Canon U.S.A., to help produce a large-scale Times Square billboard campaign honoring Canon’s influencer partners. The “Canon Celebrates Creators” ad takeover ran exclusively in Times Square on December 20, 2022.
As photography and filmmaking evolve, Canon works with a range of visual creatives who capture life and culture from perspectives that are uniquely their own, while maintaining the brand’s longstanding tradition of education, collaboration, and learning. Complementing the “Canon Celebrates Creators” billboard was an unveiling event in the heart of New York’s Times Square.
Canon wanted to celebrate its content creators during the 2022 holiday season by putting them on the Time Square billboard, the world’s brightest stage! It was a chance for creators to showcase their unique personalities and incredible work to the world.
The creative ask was for each content creator to create and showcase a moment of them creating, as inspiring as possible, and the resulting work and submit approximately 2 mins of raw footage. Complementing the “Canon Celebrates Creators” billboard was an unveiling event in the heart of New York City’s Times Square. All Canon creators featured in the billboard were invited to New York City for the big video reveal.
As Canon’s influencer agency, Intuition Media Group scouts partners for the brand who have a range of visual creativity, capturing life and culture from perspectives that are uniquely their own. Photography, filmmaking, and social media continue to evolve — and in an age where video is thriving, anybody can be an influencer, and everybody needs a camera to get the job done, we think about how to tell and refine Canon’s brand story. From amateurs and hobbyists to seasoned pros, we get Canon in front of every audience, as well as attract the next generation with influential purchasing power.
With the holiday shopping season in full swing, the opportunity presented itself against the tightest of timelines. From idea to reality to day-of launch, the “Canon Celebrates Creators” campaign was produced in just 4 weeks. Intuition Media's scope included casting, contracting, coordinating asset packaging, event wrangling, influencer travel, social media tracking & insight reporting.
We were tapped by Canon and their creative agency, Pixel and given a timeline of about 10 days to source, contract, brief, manage and deliver 20 raw video assets. Our strategy was to source, select and focus the campaign on strong creators that were able to share stories with their audience through images and videos showcasing their passion point whether that be fashion, photography, lifestyle etc. We looked specifically for those that appreciated the craft of photography and videography and whose content was compelling and inspirational in unique ways. This strategy ensured we cast a wide net within their sphere of influence, while still staying true to the Canon brand.
Our team worked over weekends and Thanksgiving not only trying to secure some big names but also helping influencers with any issues that arose, such as training and guidance on the raw video requirements as well as coordinating last-minute shipping to get cameras delivered, even to Hawaii. Through our deep connections with talent agencies, such as Whaler, Talent X, UTA & A3, we assembled a diverse, eclectic group of 22 social media personalities and photographers for the billboard ad: Noah Beck, Larri Merritt, Nicole Laeno, Kyle Nutt, David Suh, Chelsea Yamase, Rory Kramer, Raven B. Varona, Natalia Seth, Atiba Jefferson, Cindy Chen, and more. All creators were noted Canon users who authentically support and endorse the brand and were either creators that Intuition had worked with during the past year on behalf of Canon or a Canon internal creator.
Two (2) weeks out from the go-live date, talent delivered raw footage of them using their Canon camera for vlogging, still pictures, and filmmaking, each bringing a unique blend of art, style, and energy. Intuition collaborated with NYC-based creative agency Pixel and filmmaker Sally Tran that worked tirelessly behind the scenes to edit and package the footage for use across multiple digital billboards. Exciting, fun, vibrant videos illustrated the creator's passions while bringing to life the amazing Canon camera(s)
The resulting video was shown on a Times Square billboard, for 1 hour, looping 4 times on multiple billboards.
In the end, exposure for Canon transcended far beyond the 5 blocks of Times Square. Canon creators shared their billboard feature live from NYC and in the days after, accruing 148 organic posts from the 22 Canon creators, 77 million views and 8 million engagements across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. From “The Crossroads of the World” to a national audience, this integrated campaign pushed the boundaries of creativity and showed what is possible with passionate partners, a hard-working team, and Canon equipment.
Here is what a few creators had to say about the experience:
Atiba Jefferson: “I’m so honored to be on the big screen in Times Square. Love my Canon family.”
Cindy Chen: “Thank you Canon for seeing my vision and giving me the opportunity to showcase myself as an artist in FRONT of the camera.”
David Suh: “Thank you Canon for believing in photographers, visionaries, and creators like me and so many talented others.”
Teejay Hughes: “Thank you to Canon for wholeheartedly supporting creators like myself. Y’all literally make the tools that allow me to create the world I want to live in.”
The influencer relationship management of a project is crucial to its success. Our team takes the responsibility to act as the liaison with the influencers on a brand’s behalf seriously, facilitating content that resonates for the brand campaign and also making the influencer’s experience seamless. Our team is uniquely poised to wrangle influencers quickly when needed, which we leaned into heavily for this ask!
