I thought I'd check out Thinkstock to see if there were any new nasties started by Getty since I last checked in the summer to find the "image packs" - ppd with another name.

They have a 10% off sale for January, a monthly payment plan for an annual subscription and 25% off purchases at Getty Images during your Thinkstock subscription.

As some of the content that isn't at Thinkstock is at Getty - e.g. all the Vetta and Agency from iStock - I assume this discount is trying to entice buyers to subscriptions when they object that there's only a subset of the content available at Thinkstock.

I pulled my Vetta files, so it doesn't affect me personally, but I assume any exclusive who has Vetta/Agency will be paid less on a sale via Getty that's at a 25% discount (i.e. it won't be Getty paying the bill for this promo) - i.e. I assume it's 20% of the actual sales price, not "list".

Seems pretty ballsy to me to pass on the costs of promos for your low end subs site to the contributors at your higher end image site. I'm sure they'll suggest that this is incremental business, not cannibalization, but they also said Thinkstock was a totally different market with different customers and then started selling credits image packs.

Perhaps this is good news, ITLR.  As you suggest, business at TS must be less than expectations.

Weren't they conceived to go after Shutterstock's business?  SS has shown significant growth this year, so apparently it isn't working. 

Perhaps this is good news, ITLR.  As you suggest, business at TS must be less than expectations.

Weren't they conceived to go after Shutterstock's business?  SS has shown significant growth this year, so apparently it isn't working. 

We thought they were but that doesn't seem to be the plan at all. They could have discounted heavily on subscription rates to attack SS but they didn't, they just matched the pricing. That won't lure anyone anywhere. As with many things Getty, the master plan remains obscure.