Seizing The Moment

Blink And You'll Miss It

A once in a lifetime event demands preparation, knowledge and the right gear

Background:
As smartphones became the default for everyday photography, traditional cameras were increasingly reserved for special occasions. Canon needed to stay top-of-mind and relevant during those high-stakes “real camera” moments to maintain market share and brand leadership.

Activities:
My goal was to identify and capitalize on culturally significant moments that would highlight Canon’s technical advantages and reassert its relevance, particularly during events when image quality truly mattered.

I led a cross-functional initiative to build a campaign around the Great American Eclipse of 2017—the first total solar eclipse visible coast-to-coast in the U.S. in 99 years. We framed our strategy around four pillars: Educate, Engage, Equip, and Enable.

Collaborated with Sales and Product Marketing to create eclipse photography kits with specialized filters, generating incremental retail revenue and deepening partner relationships.
Partnered with Canon’s Education team and our Explorers of Light ambassadors to launch online and in-person training courses that taught consumers how to safely and creatively capture the eclipse.
Worked with our Service team to promote pre-event camera maintenance (“clean and checks”), ensuring gear readiness and driving service revenue.
Coordinated with PR to place Canon spokespeople in national and trade media, securing widespread visibility and reinforcing Canon’s position as a thought leader in photography.

Results:

Online education traffic quadrupled leading up to the event and remained 2X higher more than a year later.
$275,000+ in direct, incremental e-commerce revenue of specialized “Eclipse kits”
$25,000+ in revenue generated from in-person workshops.
Maintenance services saw a 7% lift in revenue.
PR efforts drove 850 million+ impressions and secured 69% Share of Voice, significantly boosting brand visibility and long-term equity.

By aligning Canon with a once-in-a-lifetime national moment, and reinforcing the idea that many personal moments are just as important, we reestablished Canon as the camera of choice when quality truly counts.