iHate iStock.
Stock imagery is pervasive. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I see the same woman with a pink hat on a banner ad for yogurt, the billboard for resort travel and the flyer for the local gardening club. It’s our job and our passion to create unique, ownable brands for our clients. Stock photography makes that task significantly more challenging.
Unfortunately, stock (like all necessary evils) has its benefits. When we are in the concepting phase of a project, we can easily (and quickly) find stock photos or illustrations that will convey the rough ideas to the client. And in production, stock is definitely more budget friendly than a custom shoot or the time and talent of an illustrator. But I must say this now and pay the consequences later. When we sell our ideas using stock imagery, we are often times selling our creative short.
Our art directors, designers and copywriters all have vivid, visual imaginations. We are adept at creating concepts that are strategic and that will stand out amidst the clutter of marketing messages in the world. By defaulting to stock imagery for the finished product, we are allowing anonymous outsiders to deliver our vision. And it will never be as strategic or ownable as if we did it ourselves. Having said all of that, I know that my feelings about stock won’t make it go away. It’s a tool that serves its purpose. But I’d like to push clients to realize the value of a visual brand and story that belongs to them. Setting aside budget for images or illustrations that can’t be used by any other company on the block is a smart, savvy investment. And I’m just sick of seeing that same woman with the pink hat everywhere. At least Photoshop it and make it yellow.
Comments
A big ol' "RIGHT ON!" to you Deborah!
When convenience outweighs craft we do a big disservice.
I tracked one image for about a year and wrote about it here.
www.capstrat.com
I loved that the same image was used for a singles network, diarrhea medicine, herpes medicine and cosmetic dentistry.
What does that say about your brand?
AWESOME! Thank you for the concrete example to validate my feelings.
I would love to hear the stories behind why that image was chosen for each piece.
"Well, you know that guy looks like he has just conquered diarrhea/herpes/divorce/bad teeth."
Deborah has nailed it with this post. The stock situation is the key to understanding production value.
Production value is one of those things that's hard to define, but you know it when you see it. When you see the stock lady in the pink hat shilling for a resort, you get the vague sense you've seen her before. Then two days later, you see her in a toothpaste ad and your opinion of both brands instantly goes down. Oh, they use the same stock photo source.
Conversely, when you produce original photography for an ad that fits both the brand and the message, the ad conveys a much higher production value. The image is unique, you will not see it anywhere else. It will also "fit" the spot better and will not feel generic at all.
With clients being budget conscious it can be difficult to persuade them to invest in original photography. But in the long run your brand will benefit, you advertising will be more unique and will get more notice. In a world of stock, originality stands out.
Said it before. Will say it again. Lazy creatives are to blame.
Sure, sometimes stock resources are needed. But, with all the editing software, we can push it outside it's stockiness.
Just sayin'.
You are so right on.
There can be problems showing stock art, especially early in projects when it's only to be used as a comp (FPO of what it "could be like"). Often, there is a lost-in-translation moment between the client and agency, and the client can think the comp is good enough.
It's at this point that sketches and broader ideas are better to get across instead of showing terrible stock photos.
A writer who pushes for visual integrity?! I love that this sounds like it was written by an art director. It just shows me that we should always be pushing each other to come up with better ideas, write better headlines, create awesomer layouts, and yes, NOT automatically jump to the $3 stock images.
Got this from a tweet on capstrat.com. Felt that it dovetailed nicely with our conversation:
mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com
I bet the software uses stock images!
I've worked in small-time marketing where we had to rely on stock images for cost and time. Every time I saw an image reused elsewhere, it made me cringe. Being the the real estate/mortgage arena, the choices were limited and so literal. "Hi. I'm a real estate agent shaking hands with the happy white couple that I just sold a house to. You can tell that because we are standing in front of a for sale sign in front of a house that a young couple would never be able to afford."
The good and bad of it? I hated it. The less marketing savvy higher ups loved it. I still cringe at the thought,
Great topic. Couldn't agree more with Deborah's hate lasers.
Fadra, I'm with you on the stock handshake. The world is littered with thousands of them. And then I stumbled upon my first "stock handshake video" last night.
Behold the awesomeness of this: www.daszkalbolton.com
Too funny Gino and Fadra.
We've had a funny thing happen here. One of our art directors, Ryan Cuthriell, is actually trying to find the worst typical stock image. And you know what? He's having a hard time. The cheese gets deeper and deeper.
Bit of a plug here for Which Stock Agency but we have a number of badly keyworded images and just plain bad images highlighted in this article: www.whichstockagency.com
Please feel free to post your comments about individual stock agencies on our site: www.whichstockagency.com
You go Deborah! The whole industry is gloating over the news that iStock photo admitted their profit model was unsustainable. You're obviously not the only one who feels like you do.
@Jamie. Thanks a lot for directing me to your blog. I will definitely keep you in mind for future projects when we CAN convince the client to go with custom.
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