Here’s Abroad, a short movie by filmmaker John Lynch. It’s in fact a Pentax K-5 commercial. Yet the camera’s hardly mentioned. You never even see the camera. It’s a Pentax anti-commercial. If only more ad campaigns were like this…
Great editing, fantastic story, yet a bit outdated first K-5 incarnation. Right, in a way it’s a generic commercial. You could replace the camera with almost any other brand and have the same message. Still, the K-5 now being in its third generation with the K-5 IIs looks like a sturdy workhorse that can take a good beating.
Pentax is still a dark horse in today’s deadly competitive digital imaging market. Yet they have some of the most loyal users and produce cameras that, well, just work.
Now which commercial gives a more lasting impression: the implicit or explicit one?
The one with grandiose music in the background giving the creeps — or the unobtrusive one telling a simple and honest story that comes from the heart?
For more on the making of and thinking behind this anti-commercial read John Lynch’s How-To.