Canon Australia has overhauled its ambassador program with the announcement of the Canon Champions, a three-tier system consisting of Masters, Ambassadors and Creators.
The Masters are ‘world class image creators who have perfected their craft and offer vision, insight and experience’; Ambassadors ‘are innovative creatives who Canon believes will encourage upcoming image-makers to hone their skills’; and Creators are influencer-types who loan gear to make content that ‘champion creativity and engage diverse online audiences’.
‘We are thrilled to announce our new Masters and Ambassadors who, along with Creators, form our Canon Champions advocacy program,’ said Nina Spannari, general manager of Canon Australia marketing and customer experience. ‘Representing every skill level and some of Australia and New Zealand’s most talented image-makers, Canon created the program to support our industry professionals and the next generation of content creators. As Canon Champions they solely trust our products to bring their creative vision to life, and equally, we’re champions of their work, collaborating with them on product campaigns and passion projects to help them reach an even wider audience, and in turn inspire content creators to take their creative journey to the next level.’
In July Inside Imaging reported how Canon ended the decade-long Canon Masters program, after the company appointed three new ambassadors and hadn’t done anything with the Masters for years.
At the time we wrote:
‘There was no official announcement regarding the termination of the Canon Masters program; at some stage the microsite was quietly scrubbed. It possibly ended a year ago during Canon’s scaling down of programs, or even petered out before then. Regardless there is now a fresh, albeit much smaller, ambassador program in its place.
The end of Canon Masters, established in 2010 as the EOS Masters, ties in with a broader industry shift – a changing of the guard from experts to influencers.
It turns out Canon was working on a new ambassador program, rather than terminate it, and there are 15 new Masters – the top level of the program – across Australia and New Zealand.
The Masters are: Newborn photographer Kelly Brown, nature photographer Darren Jew, travel photographer Richard I’Anson, sports and portrait photographer Phil Hillyard, motorsport photographer Mark Horsburgh, commercial photographer Daniel Linnet, travel and landscape photographer Sean Scott, cinematographer Dave May, fashion and editorial photographer Emily Abay, landscape photographer Paul Blackmore, commercial and fine art photographer Tania Niwa, New Zealand landscape photographer Jackie Ranken, landscape photographer Mike Langford, advertising photographer Sacha Stejko, and press photographer Virginia Woolf.
The Master’s program kicks off with Abay, Hillyard and Horsburgh road-testing the newly announced EOS R3 with their first impressions going live next month.
Canon also announced two additional ambassadors – sports photographer Bonnie Cee and fashion photographer Alisha Lovrich – will join James Simmons, Jarrad Seng, and Kate Cornish who are ‘collaborating with Canon on developing their own unique passion projects’.
Be First to Comment