Following online criticism, should the way we review cameras change, asks
Each year, marketing teams spend millions trying to create the right environment for products their brands have spent millions on developing when it’s time to reveal those products to the world. Some of that goes on traditional marketing channels, including advertising, product photography and promotional materials. Increasingly, creators and reviewers are included in that budget, through direct partnerships and sponsorship, as well as indirect spend through press trips and events.
That last area, where reviewers and creators are invited to attend press events, proved controversial for the launch of Panasonic’s Lumix S9 in Japan in May. I was on that trip. Wearing my reviewer’s hat, my job is to assess the context of a release and then communicate my opinions about the product or event objectively.
I expected the S9 (see page 93) to polarise opinion but I didn’t expect the launch event to cause camera YouTube to go into meltdown. Creators shared a wave of content about the S9 on social media and, as the embargo lifted, an influential YouTuber, who claimed he wasn’t invited to the launch in Japan, made a series of posts criticising the launch and the practices around it, culminating in him publishing a video, which has so far garnered over 114,000 views. The comments consisted of people largely agreeing that professionals can’t be objective when surrounded by their peers and that the camera review process needs to change (to what, though, wasn’t specified). It also led to commenters accusing creators who attended the launch event of being shills for making content there.
The truth is that many of us find i
