My thoughts about the Photo biz–and other stuff I’m thinking about

Recent articles in both the New York Times and ADWEEK reported on the controversial practice of crowd sourcing for creative concepts and advertising.

The practice of crowd sourcing for ad images was a painful trend I first heard about well over a year ago. An ad agency art buyer told me about her frustrating assignment to satisfy a major account. They’d asked her to source a photo for one of their ads– not from Corbis or Getty, or even one of the Royalty Free image resources–they wanted her to look on Flickr.

Fortunately, for professional photographers, this didn’t become a huge trend at the bigger ad agencies. The legal paperwork necessary to safely license work  (e.g.model and property releases) was sorely lacking back then on most of the images posted on photo-sharing sites. It made buying images off Flickr for ad usage not worth the headache. So professionals still got calls for stock.

But, as we know, things have since changed and now pros regularly post their released-images up on Flickr hoping to catch the eye of an ad agency photo researcher.

Once crowd-sourcing photos became a viable solution for big ad agency creative departments, it was only a matter of time before someone in a corner office decided to connect the dots.

It seems that crowd sourcing has folded back in on itself. What was “good for the goose is now good for the gander”. Renegade employees from the traditional ad agency world, have opened an agency that is pitching itself as a radical break from the traditional ad agency business model. They are going to use “the wisdom of crowds” (as crowd sourcing is often referred to)  to generate ideas collaboratively. But that collaboration will occur outside the traditional teams of art director and copywriter. The ad agency will “curate” the best ideas from those submitted. To feed this trend,  new agency models are starting to spring up to satisfy their clients appetites for fresh ideas.

This news makes me wonder about two possible outcomes:

1. Is this the dawn of a new opportunity for photographers to be more collaborative and have more creative influence? Can they once again–as they were in the “Mad Men” era of advertising (1960s)–be involved in the conceptual phase of an ad’s imagery? (That is, if they want to pitch their idea as one of the “crowd’s”).

One upon a time, when art directors drew layouts by hand,  the layout was  more of a ‘jumping off point”; art directors and photographers were much more collaborative in creating the image that would illustrate the ad concept. It was a wonderful synergy.

2. How does this impact a traditional hiring hierachy? With a new source of inexpensive ideas, will this be beginning of the end for over-paid agency staffers? Will the salaries of art directors, copywriters, and creative directors soon face the same downward pressures that photographers’ fees have endured ever since RF stock and Flickr arrived? When affordable and easy digital imaging technology arrived on the beach, photographers were set adrift on whatever life rafts they could find. With the opening of these new agencies, will a huge wave of empathy now flow from a tribe of nervous staff creatives toward the photographers (with whom they may soon be paddling)? Will freelance art directors start to team up with their talented photographer friends/fellow crowd members to pitch their highly-polished and collaborative ideas directly to the new “curators?”

This could be viewed as a tremendous new opportunity and a return to creative synergy.  Let’s at least hope for that.

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solves a problem/answers a question/broadens my

worldview/makes me laugh/makes me aware of important

information or upcoming events/inspire me to get involved

in making the world better. I suspect your potential

clients have the same perspective when deciding if

they want to follow you.

One other thing I love-and also hate-about Twitter is its “Jungle

drums, real time reporting” of what’s happening…NOW.

It’s a central part of the information-overloaded zeitgeist. I

think anyone who spends more than 15 min. a day on-line has

psychological chip in them that’s programmed to want

current information and fears being out-of-the-loop.

OK..so I’ve just publicly admitted my personal neurosis; no

doubt created by too many years in the photo ad biz

The informality and connection-by-choice
“ambient connections”  that Twitter (and
FaceBook) create, can be low-key, low-stress ways to keep
your brand in front of people who already know and like
you.

I suspect, for example, that if you just attended a
multi-day photo tech conference, news about your new-found
expertise in HDR might be worth a tweet.

When everyone has is so little time to do it all,
there is real value in getting news and cool resources.
from a community of choice.

What makes you follow someone? I’d love to know.

Read more about the size of the Twittering audience in this article.  [click to continue…]

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Last week, start-up company, Pixazza announced their new internet service enabling consumers to simply mouse over web  images to learn more and see related products. Turning items in web images into clickable and purchasable content is similar to what Google already does with its AdSense ad platform — except with this tool it sources website images to deliver ads instead of text. The Wall Street Journal reports there’s some serious investment money ($5.75 million) going into this first round of funding; Google has invested and is betting on its success.

I predict that Pixazza, will have an impact on the traditional advertising revenue model–and one that might benefit photographers. Photographers know how to create attention getting images. They’re also used to key-wording their content for stock agencies. It’s a small side-step to become a publisher; they can tag their content and earn some cash. When clients’ sales can be tracked DIRECTLY to how many people clicked and purchased products via images tagged via Pixazza, I suspect that kick-ass images will draw more traffic–and sales–than dull, cheaply-produced images. (I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before the Pixazza’s current iteration–which displays tiny yellow price tags–evolves into something slightly less-intrusive but still relevant to shoppers.)

Forwarding great content is what we all do on a daily basis. Forwarding click-able and money-making image content was going to show up sooner or later. The see-it-on-a-screen-buy-it-immediately consumer product business model has been predicted for years. But now the technology is here.

In the current era where assignment photography seems to be driven more by bottom-line costs than top-line creativity, having sales tracked to a show-stopping image (think of the viral marketing value), may be just the creative game-changer some photographers have been waiting for. [click to continue…]

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