Instazoom
- Brand
- Canon
- Year
- 2016
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Tech & Telecom
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Social
- Agency
- Miracle Factory
- With
- Dentsu Singapore
Objective
Canon needed to sell the 65x optical zoom on its PowerShot SX60 HS to Southeast Asian millennials who shot everything on a phone and saw no reason to carry a separate camera. The brief pointed straight at Instagram — used by 53% of 18-29-year-olds in the region, with engagement seven times higher than on rival platforms — but Instagram itself had no zoom feature in 2016. Rather than advertise the zoom, Canon set out to let people feel it, inside the app they already opened every day.
Solution
The campaign lives entirely on Instagram, starting on one account showing a wide slice of the Singapore skyline shot from Chinatown. Tap the photo tag on the image and it carries you to a second, linked account holding a tighter crop of the same spot — tap the tag there and the view tightens again, account by account, simulating a 65x zoom as you hop across a chain of 33 connected profiles. Hidden throughout the panorama are 24 tiny vignettes, and hunting them down as you zoom in is the game: spot enough of them and you're entered into a draw for a Canon PowerShot SX60 HS. The zoom runs open for a month before the hunt closes and a winner is drawn.
Results
The campaign generated 1.3 million impressions in its first three days across Southeast Asia, then drove social engagement up 947% and viral reach up 475%, with the Instagram account gaining more than 42,000 likes and 422% follower growth.
- 1
The campaign starts on social media, which points players to the Instagram account @canon_instazoom, branded as "Canon PowerShot SX60 HS."
- 2
The account's profile photo is a wide establishing shot: a panorama of Singapore shot from Chinatown, serving as the widest, starting view of the game.
- 3
Players tap a photo to reveal Instagram's standard photo tags, but here the tags sit on sections of the image rather than on people, functioning as zoom buttons.
- 4
Tapping a tag jumps to another of the campaign's 33 linked accounts, which holds a more zoomed-in view of that same section; repeating this across 297 images lets players zoom continuously into the panorama, choosing their own path.
- 5
Zooming deep enough into a section can surface one of 24 staged scenes hidden in the panorama, such as a figure in a window or an incident on a rooftop.
- 6
Each found scene comes with its own caption, drawn from a pool of 330 unique captions across the campaign, that adds narrative detail to that fragment.
- 7
Players back out and follow other tag branches to cover different parts of the panorama, working to track down all 24 hidden scenes.
- 8
Players who find all 24 scenes qualify for a sweepstakes to win a Canon PowerShot SX60 HS, with entries accepted through May 15, 2016.
