Marketing

How Oringer Could Improve Creator Compensation

By Jim Pickerell | 506 Words | Posted 12/16/2020 | Comments
If Jon Oringer of Shutterstock donated his annual salary of $4,598,580 to image creators who produce the products Shutterstock licenses, and divided it among creators based on the number of images licensed, how would that benefit image creators?

Consumer vs Middlemen vs Workers

By Jim Pickerell | 1939 Words | Posted 12/5/2020 | Comments
There are many businesses where one or more “middlemen” are needed between producer of the product and consumers. Digital technology is making it increasingly possible to reduce, or eliminate, the need for middlemen in many industries. When this is possible (assuming the technology developer doesn’t take a disproportionate share of the price the customer pays) the creators of the product can get a fairer share of the amount the consumer is willing to pay and has more control over the price charged for the work performed. This can benefit consumers as well as producers by giving them more direct access to the creators of the product they want to use.

Adobe Artist Development Fund

By Jim Pickerell | 941 Words | Posted 10/26/2020 | Comments
Adobe has announced that they are putting together a $500,000 Artist Development Fund to commission artists from “underrepresented communities” to create diverse assets for AdobeStock’s portfolio. It is still unclear as to exactly the type of images they will be asking photographers to shoot. Also unknown is whether the contracts will only go to photographers from “underrepresented communities” to do the shooting, or whether they may go to any photographer who is willing to shoot “underrepresented community” subjects.

Deep Fake Images

By Jim Pickerell | 603 Words | Posted 1/29/2020 | Comments
It won’t be long until commercial image users, and possibly news outlets, will no longer need photos taken by human photographers. This will particularly be true for photos of people. Every image will be digitally created from existing photos and nothing will have any relevance to reality.

End Of Stock Photography As A Profession

By Jim Pickerell | 2025 Words | Posted 12/11/2019 | Comments
One of many reasons for the decline of stock photography as a profession is that it has become almost impossible for photographers to get a clear understanding of the various types of imagery, and the relative degree of demand, that users want and need. Once that was not the case, but now there is a total disconnect between image creators and image users.

What To Do When Competitors Discount Prices

By Jim Pickerell | 489 Words | Posted 8/16/2019 | Comments
An editorial stock agent tells me that he is trying to hold the line, or increase, the prices he charges for images because his providers tell him that their costs are increasing. Meanwhile, a competitor who is offering dramatically lower prices in an attempt to win customers has entered the market. As a result, the agent's providers are seeing poorer sales. He asks for advice as to what he should do? I’ll give some answers, but I also want to invite my readers to chime in with any thoughts they might have, or strategies that have worked for them.

Who Are Macrostock Sellers

By Jim Pickerell | 1076 Words | Posted 6/11/2019 | Comments
A reader asked, “In the article written by Martin Lisius (Microstock-The Dark Side Of Image Licensing) he refers to non micro agencies as a possible answer to the low prices that photographers receive. When I search under the heading of macro stock on your site about the only name that comes up is Getty.  Do I understand this correctly?”

Getty Images And APO Group Announce Strategic Partnership

By Jim Pickerell | 634 Words | Posted 6/3/2019 | Comments
Getty Images, and APO Group, a leading media relations consultancy and press release distribution service, have announced a wide-reaching collaboration to promote integrated text, photo and video solutions to organizations operating across Africa and the Middle East.

Is Shutterstock Headed Toward Eliminating Creators?

By Jim Pickerell | 1265 Words | Posted 5/17/2019 | Comments
A reader wrote recently that he believes Shutterstock’s efforts to add huge quantities of image to its collection, as I discussed in recent article, is a “calculated plan” to eventually eliminate the need for photographers. He believes that by “feeding these images into their AI machines they will be able to learn exactly what their customers want.” Then, it is his contention, that Shutterstock will be able to “deliver custom made images (which Shutterstock would create) to clients.” He argues that ”this would just be machine work and there would no longer be a need for image makers or even computer graphic designers.”

Can Shutterstock Grow It’s Enterprise Business?

By Jim Pickerell | 534 Words | Posted 5/15/2019 | Comments
One of the big questions for Shutterstock is whether they can continue to grow the Enterprise segment of their business and how important that is to the eventual success of the company. In 2016 and 2017 they touted the success of Enterprise, but over the last 12 months Enterprise growth has been slowing and sales overall seem to be flattening.

Shutterstock Launches Self-Serve API Subscriptions

By Jim Pickerell | 421 Words | Posted 5/9/2019 | Comments
Shutterstock has announced the launch of its new self-serve API subscription plans. For the first time, developers, startups, and small and mid-sized businesses can build products and features that seamlessly integrate Shutterstock’s image collection and enable in-app image reselling, providing an additional revenue stream for customers when their end-users license and download images.

The VCG Story Takes Another Turn

By Jim Pickerell | 1105 Words | Posted 5/8/2019 | Comments
Selling-Stock has managed to gather more information about what has been happening at VCG. According to sources sometime after the Corbis acquisition VCG decided to copy Getty’s Premium Access strategy and launch a PA plan of its own. In addition to all the Getty and Corbis creative and editorial images, the iStock images are also available to the customers who purchase a PA plan.

Future Value Of Stock Images

By Jim Pickerell | 462 Words | Posted 4/29/2019 | Comments
I was asked recently to appraise the value of a collection of stock images that were being donated. Back in the 1990s and even the early 2000s this would have been a relatively easy task. I would look at the revenue the collection had generated in previous years, determine the rate of revenue decline year over year and assess, based on the type of imagery, the length of time they might continue to have commercial value.

Another VCG Update

By Jim Pickerell | 749 Words | Posted 4/22/2019 | Comments
VCG is still offline in China and there is no clear indication when they may be able to resume operations. It appears that VCG’s standard prices have ranged from tens to thousands of yuan. Thus, they could be as low $5 to $10 for the use of an image. Such prices seem to fit with the gross sales prices Getty Images has been reporting, minus a reasonable share for the selling agency. We also know that in a very few cases customers have paid well over $600 to use an image. However, It is unclear what the usage conditions have been for the extremely low prices or anything in between. Maybe VCG’s standard price packages have been very similar to those of Shutterstock or Adobe Stock. We don’t know.

Shutterstock Launches “View in Room” Augmented Reality For Mobile  

By Jim Pickerell | 326 Words | Posted 4/16/2019 | Comments
Shutterstock, has announced the launch of its first Augmented Reality (AR) feature, available on the Shutterstock customer iOS application. The latest update to the iOS application includes a new “View in Room” button that allows users to access their camera phone and virtually position any of Shutterstock’s 250 million images against the wall in a room of their choosing.

PhotoShelter Adds To Management Team

By Jim Pickerell | 308 Words | Posted 3/20/2019 | Comments
PhotoShelter, the leading digital asset management platform for visual storytellers, today announced two dynamic additions to the company’s management team: Kristine Muccigrosso and Daniel Salerno. Muccigrosso joins as the VP of Customer Success and Salerno as the Director of Talent and People Operations.

PantherMedia Representing 360Cities

By Jim Pickerell | 259 Words | Posted 3/7/2019 | Comments
PantherMedia is now representing the work of the largest provider of 360 °/VR media provider, 360Cities. 360 °/VR media are ideal for use in education, publishing, advertising and film, as well as in the development of mobile apps and games. 360Cities has been curating high-quality, fully 360 ° interactive panoramic photos for over 10 years, working with thousands of passionate VR photographers and videographers from around the world.

Getty Demanding Agencies Supply Them RM Exclusively

By Jim Pickerell | 611 Words | Posted 2/4/2019 | Comments
Sources tell me that Getty is demanding that U.S. agencies with RM images in its collection make those RM images fully exclusive through gettyimages.com. Otherwise Getty will terminate the Agreement. One theory for doing this is that Getty wants to be able to grant exclusive licenses through e-commerce sales. If Getty knows they have total control of a given image, then they would be able to grant exclusive licenses without the need to do any checking with the parent agency that represents the image to see if exclusive rights are available. This would be similar to the arrangement that Stocksy has with its photographers.

Visualsteam’s 6th Annual Survey Of Image Buyers

By Jim Pickerell | 129 Words | Posted 1/29/2019 | Comments
Visualsteam has just released it’s 6th annual survey of image buyers. This 35-page report prepared by Leslie Hughes who has decades of experience in the stock photo business always offers deep insights into what image buyers are looking for and the problems they face.

Is Marketing Changing?

By Jim Pickerell | 244 Words | Posted 10/16/2018 | Comments
One advertising trend to watch that could have a major impact on the demand for stock photography is the use of “customer stories” to market products and services. Recently at a Dreamforce conference Stephanie Buscemi, Chief Marketing Officer at Salesforce said, “We’ve eradicated stock photography. In the marketing organization, using stock photography is one way not to have a job. We always use customers.”

Beer Stock

By Jim Pickerell | 681 Words | Posted 7/30/2018 | Comments
According to The Takeout Anheuser-Busch has launched two Royalty Free collections of stock images featuring properly served beer, with diverse consumers and brewers, and myriad beer styles all found in contemporary settings on the free sites Pexels and Unsplash.

Who Are The Users Of Stock Photography?

By Jim Pickerell | 597 Words | Posted 7/27/2018 | Comments
I was asked recently if I had a breakdown of the stock images uses by various categories of industry users. The answer is NO, and as far as I know no one else has done that type of analysis. However, it occurred to me that it might be useful to develop some broad general ideas of what the breakdowns might be.

Adobe Visual Trends

By Jim Pickerell | 373 Words | Posted 7/19/2018 | Comments
Adobe just released its latest 2018 visual trend, “Creative Reality,” exploring surreal utopias and vibrant color palettes as well as the ways artists are reflecting this new day-glow-infused reality in their work. From art exhibits on Burning Man to immersive projects like Summerland, artists are creating new worlds filled with eccentric textures and hyper-sensorial experiences.

What To Shoot

By Jim Pickerell | 738 Words | Posted 7/18/2018 | Comments
After reading last weeks stories Are Photographers Shooting What’s In Demand? and What To Shoot: Learning From iStock a photographer sent the following:
    ...shoot what stirs your mind...
    ...shoot what you think others might not...
    ...shoot what you believe you're good at...
    ...shoot what's reasonably accessible...

    ...that's all...bye-bye now...

Globe Photos Resurrected As Fine Art Offering

By Jim Pickerell | 475 Words | Posted 7/5/2018 | Comments
From the 1940s through the 80s and 90s Globe Photos, Inc. was widely regarded by newspapers and magazines as a leading source for celebrity images. As other competitors entered the market Globe’s popularity faded, but they still have photographers covering red carpet events on a daily basis in Hollywood and New York. In recent years Globe Photos was one of 12 archives acquired by Capital Art, Inc., the world’s largest pop culture and image licensing company with more than 15 million images of every movie and entertainment celebrity of the 20th century.