The Olympics are a major opportunity for advertisers, but working with busy athletes and hard deadlines can make for hectic schedules.
Case in point: Visa’s “Go World” campaign, which was created by TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles and photographed by Poby. The integrated campaign includes five Visa-sponsored athletes competing in the Winter Olympics for the U.S.
In a hectic schedule, Poby traveled to several different locations with a variety of gear—skis, underwater gear, a wet suit—prepared for a variety of conditions. He and the TBWA\Chiat\Day crew traveled from Mount Hood to Maui to Lake Placid, spending as little as two days in each location.
“You only have a chance to really introduce yourself very quickly and hope on, and do whatever they do,” Poby says. “It was very run-and-gun,” adds producer Rob Saxon with TBWA\Chiat\Day.
The result is a multimedia campaign that will reach Olympics fans in print, on television and online. A series of TV spots, including ads that ran during the World Series, contained still images shot by Poby.
Poby, who normally shoots with a medium-format camera, switched to a Nikon D3X DSLR for this shoot in the interest of speed and also because had to deliver high-resolution images for billboard use.
Despite many different locations and moving parts, “It ended up working very smoothly,” Saxon says.
“It was wonderful that I, as a European photographer, was able to shoot the U.S. Olympic team,” Poby says. “I’m very proud of that.”