More Great Marketing from Nikon

If this is your first visit to this blog, I'll let you know up front that I am partial to Nikon cameras. That said, Nikon has once again hit the mark with a great marketing campaign for their Digital SLR products.

Nikon has been reporting great financial results based on largely on the success of their dSLR products. Profits were up over 50% last year. Some of this success can be attributed to the growing demand for better digital cameras as people are actually trying to use DC's and finally starting to understand the limitations of point-and-shoot models. The rest of it is just plain great marketing. You don't see it that often any more so it motivates me to write about it when you do.

Their latest campaign was to give 200 people in Georgetown, SC a Nikon D40 and let them take pictures. They then took the pictures along with profiles of some of the people who took them and created a really beautiful web site. One of the things that has always fueled my interest in photography is the emotive power of imagery. Cameraphone pictures are great to instantly send a visual message to someone and that has its own power but for pictures that really communicate beauty and emotion, nothing compares to a dSLR.

Are we seeing a renaissance of the "photo hobbyist"? All I know is many more of my friends are sporting Rebels and Nikon D's these days and that is a good sign for photography as a means for preserving memories and communicating with a view through a lens. If you have not yet taken the plunge, there's nothing to wait for. A D40 can be had for just north of $500 and the D40x for around $700 - now you will then need at least $300 worth of accessories (flash, CF/SD cards, bag, etc.) and before long you will be online looking for the best price for that telephoto zoom lens (the good news is those have come down in price too - Nikon has a 55-200 zoom with VR for less than $250).