Klein Defends $49 Web Price

Posted on 11/2/2007 by Jim Pickerell | Printable Version | Comments (0)

During the recent Getty Images conference call, Citigroup analyst Matthew Troy asked CEO Jonathan Klein to talk about the company’s dialogue with image suppliers relative to the $49 Web use for nearly all RM, RR and RF images.

Klein said, “I think it's fair to say that the way we communicated, the web-res product to photographers was somewhat lacking.” The company had “enormous focus on communicating to the customers, and our communication with the photographers didn't outline clearly enough what we had in mind.”

However, he said, “We’ve had very positive dialogue with a number of the photographer bodies” (spearheaded by the StockArtistsAlliance). He pointed out that licensing an RM image for $49 wasn’t new. The company has been licensing images for $49, and less, for book publishing projects and other publishing ventures or when somebody has a volume deal, for a very long time.

Klein said he believes photographers have become comfortable with the fact that the super-low-resolution file size cannot be used in other ways, and thus photographers are protected from unauthorized use. He continued, “Frankly, we had very little push back from those photographers, who we work with closely.”

Klein also indicated that the largest market for stock photography in terms of volume growth is online use. Getty Images licensed fewer than 20,000 RM and RF images (or about 5% of total images licensed) into the Web use market in Q2 2007. Meanwhile Klein claimed that most of iStock’s 4 million downloads in Q2 were for Web usages.



Klein said that at the end of 2005, about 10% of RM images licensed were for Web use -- and at that time the company had no way of determining the number of RF images being used on the Web because they were licensed by file size. These figures would indicate a substantial drop in use of traditional images for Web sites. And this has occurred as microstock usage has skyrocketed. This was certainly a key motivator to try something to reverse the trend.

(It is unclear how Klein was able to determine the number of RF images that were being used on the Web, since previously the smallest file size a customer could purchase was 1MB, and such images could be used in a number of different ways other than on the Web.)

In the first month after offering this new price, Getty has reached the volume levels of Web use sales equivalent to the entire fourth quarter of 2006. The company has also found that the overwhelming majority of users of this new product are either lapsed customers or completely new customers. Klein said, “It’s far too early to declare a victory. But it is certainly giving us a lot of confidence that it was absolutely the right thing to do.”

In his prepared remarks, Klein described the experience of a multimedia editor at one of Getty’s larger customers in the broadcasting and publishing fields who said, "I bought an image today for Web use for $49." Getty Images might be trying to get the micro-stock users to come back to buy licensed photographs. I see it as buyers such as myself saying to our marketing department, "Hey, I found a great picture for only 49 bucks. Do we have the budget for this?" And they say, "Totally, go buy it." That’s exactly what happened to me today. And I still like a new option for stocks that’s opened for me.


Copyright © 2007 Jim Pickerell. The above article may not be copied, reproduced, excerpted or distributed in any manner without written permission from the author. All requests should be submitted to Selling Stock at 10319 Westlake Drive, Suite 162, Bethesda, MD 20817, phone 301-461-7627, e-mail: wvz@fpcubgbf.pbz

Jim Pickerell is founder of www.selling-stock.com, an online newsletter that publishes daily. He is also available for personal telephone consultations on pricing and other matters related to stock photography. He occasionally acts as an expert witness on matters related to stock photography. For his current curriculum vitae go to: http://www.jimpickerell.com/Curriculum-Vitae.aspx.  

Comments

Be the first to comment below.

Post Comment

Please log in or create an account to post comments.

Stay Connected

Sign up to receive email notification when new stories are posted.

Follow Us

Free Stuff

Stock Photo Pricing: The Future
In the last two years I have written a lot about stock photo pricing and its downward slide. If you have time over the holidays you may want to review some of these stories as you plan your strategy ...
Read More
Future Of Stock Photography
If you’re a photographer that counts on the licensing of stock images to provide a portion of your annual income the following are a few stories you should read. In the past decade stock photography ...
Read More
Blockchain Stories
The opening session at this year’s CEPIC Congress in Berlin on May 30, 2018 is entitled “Can Blockchain be applied to the Photo Industry?” For those who would like to know more about the existing blo...
Read More
2017 Stories Worth Reviewing
The following are links to some 2017 and early 2018 stories that might be worth reviewing as we move into the new year.
Read More
Stories Related To Stock Photo Pricing
The following are links to stories that deal with stock photo pricing trends. Probably the biggest problem the industry has faced in recent years has been the steady decline in prices for the use of ...
Read More
Stock Photo Prices: The Future
This story is FREE. Feel free to pass it along to anyone interested in licensing their work as stock photography. On October 23rd at the DMLA 2017 Conference in New York there will be a panel discuss...
Read More
Important Stock Photo Industry Issues
Here are links to recent stories that deal with three major issues for the stock photo industry – Revenue Growth Potential, Setting Bottom Line On Pricing and Future Production Sources.
Read More
Recent Stories – Summer 2016
If you’ve been shooting all summer and haven’t had time to keep up with your reading here are links to a few stories you might want to check out as we move into the fall. To begin, be sure to complet...
Read More
Corbis Acquisition by VCG/Getty Images
This story provides links to several stories that relate to the Visual China Group (VCG) acquisition of Corbis and the role Getty Images has been assigned in the transfer of Corbis assets to the Gett...
Read More
Finding The Right Image
Many think search will be solved with better Metadata. While metadata is important, there are limits to how far it can take the customer toward finding the right piece of content. This story provides...
Read More

More from Free Stuff