marketing

Last year we shared a clever "real world Instagram filter" concept called InstaCRT, which took submitted photos and rephotographed them on a real CRT monitor to capture a CRT look. Seeing the success of that project, Ray-Ban has decided to use the same idea in a clever bit of marketing to promote its Ambermatic sunglasses.

To show people what the world looks like through sunglasses fitted with Ambermatic lenses, the company launched an iOS camera app called Ray-Ban Ambermatic. It can apply a yellow tint to your photos using a real pair of Ambermatic glasses.

To promote this year's edition of its sports photography competition, Red Bull Illume is sending out a pretty slick promo. It's simply a USB drive loaded with a press media kit, but the presentation is so clever that we thought we'd share it with you (perhaps you can do something similar to promote your own photography business).

The Brazilian advertising agency Y&R recently came up with an extremely clever series of photographs for Colgate to promote the company's line of Total dental floss. Check out the three couple portraits in the post and see how quickly your eye is drawn to the weirdness.

Earlier this month, Facebook stated that it's working on strategies for monetizing Instagram. Now we're starting to see the gears in the money-making machine warming up.

Instagram announced an update to its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy documents today, with changes that will take effect on January 16, 2013. While it's understandable that any service's terms must change if rolls out a new business model, many users aren't pleased with what some of the updated sections say.

An anonymous reader emailed us with a complaint about the way Fujifilm is marketing the X-E1 in a non-gender-neutral way.

Custom photo frame maker Alphabet Photography has scored one of the first big viral marketing wins of this holiday season by releasing the creative video above a couple of weeks ago. In it, they play the popular Christmas tune Carol of the Bells using various objects inside the warehouse in which the company's photo frames are made.

Self-portraits snapped with an outstretched arm can be seen everywhere these days, from profile pictures on Facebook to filtered shots on Instagram. Among iconic historical photos? Not so much.

However, Cape Town, South Africa-based newspaper Cape Times has launched a brilliant new advertising campaign that imagines what those photos were look like if they had been captured with arm's-length "selfies".

Check out this brilliant marketing idea: to promote its professional sling-style camera backpacks, Kata designed a carnival/arcade-style game called Shootout. It's live contest that has been held in various store locations and trade shows around the world. Basically, participants engage a virtual cowboy photographer in a duel. Once the timer starts, one must swing their camera bag around, "unholster it", and snap a photo of the screen. If the time captured in your photo is less than the time achieved by Mr. Cowboy Photog (and faster than other participants), you win a pretty pricey camera bag.

If you've always wanted your photography prominently displayed in New York City's Times Square, Google can help make it happen -- as long as you're okay with adding some text to your picture and participating in a marketing effort. To show that its new line of Chromebook laptops is designed for all kinds of users, the Mountain View-based company has launched a new campaign called For Everyone. It's a giant photo gallery that invites the world to upload photos that answer the question, "who are Chromebooks for?"

Imagine a photography exhibition in which all the photographs on the walls are being captured by their respective photographers in real-time around the world. That's the kind of show Sony put on this past Thursday in London: the world's first real-time digital photography exhibition.

Sony Australia is trying its hand at some viral marketing for its mirrorless cameras. The company has created a YouTube account called DSLR Gear No Idea, which contains a number of very short videos that poke fun at clueless DSLR users. The description of the channel reads:

These are the DSLR clueless - all the gear and no idea. Remind you of someone? Share it with them using the 'share' button. To find out more visit http://www.sony.com.au/productcategory/nex-camera

Each of the videos (apart from the lengthier compilation above) runs about 15 seconds and features a different stereotype. "F-Stop Fusspot" mocks the portrait photographer who's constantly changing settings on a camera he doesn't understand. "The Flasher" pokes fun at those who insist on using their flash in any and every situation.

This photograph shows renowned British photographer David Bailey standing with 142 men who share his name. You might be wondering how such a strange photo concept came together. If you remember, last month we reported that Samsung had launched a unique marketing campaign that asked any UK resident named David Bailey to step forward.

You don't get to 200,000 followers without earning a few perks. A couple of months ago, we reported that a number of Instagram power users had been flown out to the US Open in New York as part of various companies' marketing campaigns. Free trips and freebies like that one are becoming more and more common for Instagrammers with large followings.

Regardless of how you feel about Hasselblad's idea of taking a $1,100 Sony NEX-7, souping it up, and selling it for $6,500 as a Hasselblad Lunar, I think we can all agree that there needs to be honesty in marketing the camera. Well, that's what a couple of sections over on the Lunar website seriously lack. Check out the page boasting about the camera's APS-C HD CMOS Sensor, which contains a side-by-side comparison showing the common APS-C sensor size next to other popular sizes. Does that look like a Micro Four Thirds sensor to you?

It pays to be a top user on Instagram. In addition to having hundreds of thousands of eyes glued to your stream of photos, marketers for the world's top brands are constantly trying to think of ways to incorporate you into their advertising campaigns. Case in point: at the US Open this year, there will be three Insta-celebs covering the event alongside the photojournalists from major national media outlets.

Virtually all digital still cameras capture light using either a CCD or a CMOS sensor. Most consumers don't know the difference, and -- given the rate at which CMOS sensors are improving -- both sensors perform equally well in most cases (Leica is rumored to be switching over to the CMOS camp with its upcoming M10).

However, that's not what a PC World store in Ireland wants you to believe. The photo above shows an informational placard that was on display recently in one of its stores. The top image shows a scene shot with a CCD sensor, and the bottom image allegedly shows the "same scene" shot with a CMOS sensor. Hmmm...

Over the past year, Instagram has been the most talked-about photo sharing service and one of the most talked about social networking services. Logically, more and more brands are joining it and trying to figure out ways to reach potential customers through filtered photos.

Social media analytics company SimplyMeasured published an interesting report earlier this week that explores how popular Instagram currently is among the world's most valuable brands.

Heartwarming video alert: soccer fans snapping photos inside a London Olympics 2012 photo booth were given a surprise of a lifetime when soccer legend David Beckham randomly poked his head in. The video above -- created by Adidas -- captures the priceless reactions of the shocked fans. See if you can spot the die-hard Beckham fan (hint: he's young).

One of the most important things a photographer must do is advertise and sell their services. All professionals have a good grasp on how to take great photos and edit them in post to make them look even better, but fewer have the time, expertise, or funds to put together a quality portfolio that will catch a client's eye and bring them business. That's where the Iconify platform comes in.

Security camera clips that make the news usually show bad things, but Coke decided to “look at the world …

The world of photography is full of "nuts," but these are the first we've seen that you could actually crack open with a nutcracker. For its latest photography marketing stunt, Olympus has been sending out a box complete with two walnuts and a note that simply says "coming soon." TechRadar received one, and PhotographyBlog received another.

German ad agency Jung von Matt created this brilliant series of photographs for a LEGO advertising campaign titled "Imagine". The images show famous characters from children's television shows in simplified LEGO form. Can you figure out each of the shows?

One of the most important things I’ve learned during my ongoing adventure as a small-town, self-employed photographer is that nothing is more important than the relationships I’m building. So when I decided sometime last year that I was going to do a 2012 promo I wanted to create something that looked elegant, something that the recipients could be a part of and most importantly, something that could start building long-lasting relationships.

Photographers used to spend lifetimes building up their portfolios and networks before their work became widely known to a global audience, but with the advent of the Internet, the fact that anything can "go viral" is completely changing the equation for success.

The brilliant marketing gurus over at Pentax came up with this photograph as a way of illustrating that the …

Cloud-based photo hosting service Snapjoy launched a clever web app (and marketing ploy) …

Ever wonder why camera manufacturers these days are describing often sensor sizes with fractions instead of millimeters? Roger Cicala …

Back in September we featured a project called This Was Found that promotes art by leaving framed prints out and about in the UK. Now, printing company Jondo is taking it to the next level with a project called Art Heist. They've left 26 gigantic, museum-quality 40x60inch canvases in various secret locations around Los Angeles. Find one, and you're free to take it home. Just make sure you have a good way of bringing home the massive photo!

Nikon says the megapixel race ended years ago, but its upcoming camera is …

What has the world come to? Apparently the prestigious Magnum Photos has partnered with Nintendo to promote the Nintendo 3DS as a camera. Photographers Martin Parr, Thomas Dworzak and Gueorgui Pinkhassov used the handheld gaming device to shoot a series of 3D photos that were then put on display in an exhibition held at the Magnum Gallery in Paris.

Turns out the giant hand sculptures that popped up all over the world over the past few …

All signs point to a Nikon mirrorless camera announcement at midnight tonight and, after Nikon’s strange “I …

Last Friday, Olympus partnered with JetBlue for an Oprah-style giveaway: each of the …

Photo fads are themselves growing as a fad -- after "planking" became a worldwide Internet sensation earlier this year, it seems like every week a silly new idea is introduced as "the new planking".

Sometimes pricing your services creatively can be a good marketing tactic. Other times, as in the case of this …

It’s estimated that 8 million people in the US struggle with an eating …

Sigma generated a lot of buzz recently after announcing its SD1 DSLR with a $9,700 MSRP, and that's probably exactly what they were trying to do. As articles all over the Internet questioned why a 14.7MP Sigma DSLR would cost the same price as Pentax's 40MP medium-format DSLR, Sigma was quick to point out that the camera would actually be selling for a slightly more reasonable street price of $6,900.

Deal of the day website Groupon is the fastest growing companies in web history and a popular way for local businesses to generate some buzz in their areas, but some independent photographers are finding out the hard way that offering special deals through Groupon might be the worst marketing decision they ever made.

Samsung recently partnered up with viral marketing agency The Viral Factory to launch 200 paper airplanes carrying SD cards from the edges of space. We first reported on this experiment back in September of last year, but they followed through with the plans and just published this video this week showing how they accomplished it. The balloon was launched in Germany, and each SD Card carried a message for the finder to prove how durable they are.

Leica recently ran a series of billboard advertisements promoting the S2 medium format DSLR and V-Lux 1. The billboards were quite unique in that they were individually made to show the wall they were placed on, with the details of the wall blown up to highlight the 12x optical zoom of the V-Lux 1 and the 37.5 megapixel sensor of the S2.