There are visual storytellers and then there are visual story-enablers. And if you’re working to create a visual story, chances are you need the gear to bring it to life and captivate an audience. But gear is expensive! That’s why, most likely, you’re probably pretty happy with recent technological advances that have, essentially, democratized storytelling by making cameras affordable to the masses. One of the companies leading that drive is Nikon – one of the biggest and most successful producers of camera equipment on the planet.
Now, full disclosure, we’ve long been Nikon photographers and when we decided to build Nature Labs, they were our first call for support. Nikon stepped up to the plate. But this isn’t an ad for Nikon; it’s a chance to better understand a large corporation and its views on ethical storytelling, advancing innovation and employing would be storytellers. It’s a rare chance to better understand what it takes to gain support from a company that believes strongly in community giving and learn what the future might hold for an industry that, like so many, is in the midst of massive change.
We met with one of Nikon’s senior spokespeople, Mark Cruz, to ask why storytelling still matters and why helping nature – a small part of their business – makes up a big part of their giving.
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What do you think?
- Do we do a good enough job highlighting the importance of marketing to up-and-coming storytellers?
- How can we do a better job of marketing good ideas in a noisy world? How much of it comes down to traditional marketing and how much of it boils down to creating visual stories that will sell?
- Is it possible to tell visual stories in the way we want to tell them, without sacrificing ideals or market potential?