Photography Is Dead. Long Live Photography.

In a move to reach the millennials, Canon are launching a new marketing campaign, in fact not just a marketing campaign, but a completely new brand “ethos”.

It’s not about the gear you use, it’s about going out there and taking the photo, telling your story, and Canon's new strapline is:

Live for the story_

So go, live life, take photos, go out there, make stuff happen, go and do things, and while you’re doing things, take photos, with whatever you have on you. Use a smartphone, use Snapchat, use Instagram, use whatever you already have to take photos. 

Canon want you to:

Shoot > Remember > Share

Do something with your photo, maybe even print it, or make a photobook (with Canon’s HDbook), or Lifecake (photobooks for parents), share your photos with Instagram (and win a trip around the world with Canon, and Zoe Kravitz), Facebook, or store your photos on Canon's irista service (this app can be set up to automatically backup your photos from your smartphone, as well as from Facebook, Google+, and Flickr). 

Basically photography is no longer about the kit, it’s no longer about owning a Canon, or a Nikon, or an Olympus, it’s about taking photos, to capture life, to live life, to remember life, and then to share your photos, and that means sharing it on social media, whether it’s Facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram.

Canon want to reach out to those that don’t think a Canon camera is for them, and then after that, Canon want to get them to buy a Canon mirrorless camera. Not straight away though. After Canon have told them to take and share photos. You'll be able to see Canon's adverts on TV, in cinemas, in print, and on-line.

It’s a bold move. But as we’ve seen, the digital camera market has been in decline, with less and less digital cameras being launched every year. At it's peak, there were over 190 cameras announced in 2012, declinging to only 87 cameras announced in 2016 (excluding drones). 

Something needs to be done to reach out to those people that have switched to a smartphone (or not even used a digital camera in the first place), and those people that are taking photos, are taking more photos than ever, with 350 million photos uploaded to Facebook every day. So it makes sense to start talking to these photographers, otherwise, who is talking to them, already? Facebook, Instagram, Samsung, Apple?

And whilst Canon are going after the young (the children are our future), have they gone far enough?

Why aren’t Canon releasing a “Canon Camera App” for the smartphone generation to use, to take the photos in the first place? From there they could share directly to Instagram, Facebook, HDbooks, Lifebook, Irista, and all the time Canon could be educating these millennials on how to take better photographs, how to make photos better, and once they’ve outgrown all they can achieve with their smartphone, they could then buy a Canon camera, for better photographs. 

Because it’s not going to be long till smartphones start offering optical zoom, better low light performance, multiple lenses, and more… oh wait, what’s that, they already do? And, if Canon don't educate people on how to take better photos, Apple sure will.