Singer Avril Lavigne has signed an endorsement deal with Canon Canada to promote its Rebel digital SLR cameras and ELPH compact point-and-shoot cameras. She has long played around with photography, taking pictures of friends, family and scenery as she tours the world.

Ever-adorable in a black and pink hoodie, black jeans, and pink and black animal-print flats, Lavigne, who lives in Los Angeles, greeted a handful of media and Canon execs for a total of four minutes in Toronto yesterday (Oct. 20) to launch the campaign. She did not field any questions from press, but told the moderator, Stacey Englehart of local rock station Z103.5, "Canon is a great brand with great products."

"I'm always taking photos and the great thing about digital photography today is you have so many different settings and you can take a million pictures and delete all the bad ones," Lavigne laughs.

The multi-platinum-selling artist, who is winding down promotion for her latest album, 2007's "The Best Damn Thing," shot two ads in Toronto in August, which have just started airing across Canada.

"It was the first commercial I've ever shot so it was very cool, very similar to shooting music videos," she says. "The ad for the ELPH was really fun because it was me on a treasure hunt with a pink treasure box and I got to go through it and find all these goodies and then I found the pink ELPH, and the ad for the Rebel was more creative and I had to use my imagination."

In the Powershot ad, to the tune of her "Girlfriend" hit, Lavigne, dressed in a black dress, pulls an assortment of pink items from a pink trunk, such as a pink guitar, tiara, feather boa, parasol, balloons, hockeystick, pom-poms, and of course the pink ELPH. The camera comes in five colours.

In the ad for the black more professional looking Rebel, she is wearing dark jeans and brown hoodie, and uses the camera to shoot her concert fans, drum kit, studded belt, sparkly microphone, array of guitars and clothing. "How do I capture inspiration? How do I remember a perfect moment? How do I reflect on an amazing experience? How do I express my creativity? With my Canon Rebel," Lavigne says in the voiceover. The music to her song "The Best Damn Thing" then gets louder, capped with the lyric "I'm the best damn thing that your eyes have ever seen."

Both ads can be viewed under the "videos" section on Canon's microsite, www.shootlikeastar.ca. Fans can also contribute to the gallery section, where they can upload personal photographs and customize them with various images from Lavigne's ads, including tiaras, feather boas and balloons.

The singer will be promoting the full range of products from Canon's consumer imaging line in the coming months.