Take Control of Your Brand's Images

I hope you understand I'm not talking about identity guidelines, but of the photography you use to market your company or organization. A lot of things have changed over the past 5 years with commercial photography, but two things have not:

1. Great photos are harder than ever to find.
2. Inexpensive (or free) images are now everywhere.

Over the past few years, Web sites like istockphoto.com and Shutterstock (among others) have led a revolution in royalty free stock photography. Their sales model is based on community, rather than the traditional client and photographer relationship. This position allows their prices to be very low, making this an economical solution. But the images that buyers are able to obtain are open to everyone, meaning there is no way to ensure exclusivity of any kind. Many organizations are comfortable with that--however some are now finding out otherwise.

Did you hear about the company that found the face of their advertising being used in Playboy ads selling Enzyte?

Do you know about the model simply referred to as Everywhere Girl?








Or the model whose same photo shoot has been used to sell everything from handbags to "dating services" (full story here)?

In an era where stock photo sales have exploded and using them in marketing efforts is the norm, realize that using (and more importantly relying on) inexpensive stock photography as a representation of your brand is similar to dating every person who has used that photo--and that is a scary thing.