Brentwood, Tenn.-based Dreamstime, originally launched in Romania, is expanding distribution in its native region. It has partnered with Prague’s Imagio.cz to bring micro-priced creative and editorial imagery to the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Financial arrangements were not disclosed.
As ad spending continues to stagnate or decline in industrialized countries, developing markets are increasing their share of the global ad revenue. ZenithOptimedia projects that developing markets will be responsible for 63% of the ad-expenditure growth between 2007 and 2010, accounting for a third of the global ad spend. Asia-Pacific countries are growing at unprecedented rates of over 100% year over year; Central and Eastern Europe is the second fastest-growing region.
Researchers expect major-media ad-spending in the region to increase by a third during 2008. In 2010, the Central and Eastern European ad market is expected to nearly double its revenues. Dreamstime’s regional roots, micro-pricing and a new local partner in the former Czechoslovakia position the company to benefit from the local market’s dynamic growth.
Imagio is a fulfillment-only operation, which will offer Dreamstime-only content. Project manager Martin Maun said that the Czech and Slovak markets are currently dominated by traditionally priced international agencies, which also do business in English. He thinks that both factors -- price and language -- limit the purchasing options of local designers and art directors.
Mann intends to fill what he sees as a void. Affordable pricing is the primary appeal of the new offering, and Imagio also plans to build a native-language environment for image sales. Local photographers will also be able to contribute; however, this will be done directly through Dreamstime’s own Web site.
In addition to the professional advertising, design, publishing and Web markets, the Dreamstime/Imagio partnership seeks to capitalize on personal uses, which are growing in Eastern Europe with a global rise in personal Web sites, blogs and use of images in home décor.
Dreamstime’s alliances also include ImageClick, Brightqube, PicFindr and others. The company currently offers 3.5 million images by over 40,000 contributors to a customer base that exceeds 850,000 buyers. In addition to English, its Web site supports Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, German, and Portuguese.