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FROM MEDIO TO GLOW
November 1, 2005
What in the world is Medio Images? Last week in his conference call to investors Jonathan Klein mentioned that Getty Images had just purchased a company named Medio Images and that they got 35,000 images in the deal.
Three years ago Medio Images, a company founded to specialize in the production of Latino lifestyle images, didn't even exist and now it has been sold lock, stock and barrel (the phrase means "all inclusive of its parts") to Getty. The few in the industry who knew anything about the company are saying, "good for the owners, now they can retire and go sit on a beach in Miami." That's not, hardly the plan.
CEO, Gustavo Baez and his team intend to aggressively continue stock photo production and they are not missing a beat. Part of the deal with Getty allows them to establish a new brand and continue producing images. They are doing just that at a frantic pace. They expect to launch a new brand called Glow in early December. Glow will offer the same high quality, and highly marketable images for which Medio Images have become known. All the same production people are still involved and the company is expanding its operation and capabilities daily.
Some might think, "that's all well and good, but it will take them a while to build a new file." Not true. As the deal with Getty was being closed, Baez was already thinking ahead and producing for the next business. Given the production already in the pipeline, by early 2006 Glow expects to be offering at least 20,000 images with a special emphasis on Latin lifestyles, travel, concepts and illustration. That number of images will continue to steadily grow. Given their history it can also be expected that the breadth of subject matter that interests them will expand as they continue to move forward and discover ways to exploit other niche's of the market.
The Glow production operation is a perfect example of where I think the industry is headed (See Story 771). They have put together a team of production coordinators, photographers, and photoshop experts that can arrange shoots, produce volume and move the images quickly to market. They have production facilities in Maryland, Miami, Colombia, Venezuela and Estonia.
Glow will put very little emphasis on direct selling to customers. Instead the company expects the vast majority of its revenue to come from sales made through existing distributor operations that represent many different brands and have long standing relationships with their customers. They have already signed agreements with many of the major distributors and are looking for other outlets worldwide.