My relationship with Nikon began with the launch of their first mass market digital compact. The campaign included a full-page feature on the benefits, ease and myths of digital photography in the Mirror and a series of regional competitions linking schools with their local papers. With only PR support, sales of the camera vastly exceeded expectations.

The following year I persuaded the camera bods to be a little more adventurous when launching the Coolpix 2500 to a hard to reach, cash-rich, attention-poor 20-30 year old audience. Using the camera’s ‘twisting’ lens, I created a character called Twisted Sister (a 7ft drag queen) whose outfit mimicked the design of the camera.

Twisted Sister visited bars and clubs taking pictures of the customers. The pictures appeared on the venues’ plasma screens as a Nikon branded photo-montage. The pictures also appeared on a dedicated website. You can see how the site looked here.

The three month campaign attracted over 20,000 site visitors, 11,000 votes and 2,678 competition entries.

My next job was to organise a press trip to Iceland for 40 influential journalists and photographic retailers. Alongside the business presentations in the Reykjavik Grand Hotel, I put together a fun programme which included a fashion show on top of a glacier, snowmobiling, sightseeing and, eating puffin.