Media Decoder: Samsung Takes New Camera on a National Tour

 Samsung will go coast to coast to highlight its SH100 camera.

The makers of the Samsung SH100 digital camera are taking a literal approach to product placement in a marketing campaign that starts on Monday.

The campaign, called the Samsung Coast to Coast Photo Post, will put a single SH100 into the hands of people in 25 cities across the country so they can use it to post photos on various social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Picasa. The campaign is intended to highlight the camera’s ability to instantly upload photos to the Web, something that an increasing number of cellphone cameras already do.

“We know consumers are increasingly sharing content,” said Reid Sullivan, the company’s senior vice president for mobile entertainment for the United States, adding that the quality of cellphone camera photos is no match for the Samsung device.

Samsung teamed up with the digital agency Mekanism to create the campaign, which is scheduled to start in Los Angeles and end in New York City at the end of the month. The initiative represents the first time the brand and the agency have worked together.

In order to pass the single camera from city to city, a small team from Samsung will visit each location and hand over the device to a person they have deemed a “social influencer” for the day. The goal is to create “little snapshots of Americana,” Mr. Sullivan said.

Representatives from Mekanism will document the approximately 3,600-mile journey in user-generated photographs, and the collection will be shown at a gallery event in June in New York City. The photo that generates the most “likes” on Facebook will be deemed the best of the bunch. Additional promotions will include product demonstration videos on YouTube, in-store dealer promotions and newspaper ads.