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General Stock Discussion / Re: Anyone a Getty contributor?
« on: August 29, 2010, 12:45 »
Since the early 90s my marketing firm often bought from Bettmann Archive, Getty, Corbis, Masterfile and Tony Stone. (Before all the merging). We probably got 500 pounds of catalogs a year!
TS was our favorite for advertising work since it was the most "out there" and worked well with marketing concepts. But that stock photo line-item on the estimates made clients nuts. And having to pay the annual usage fee was often a deal killer. Some of my national clients had the budget but most mid-sized company marketing managers did not like it and explaining it to the CFO was another issue. So we often shot what we needed.
I think I became aware of iStock around 2003 through their "Dirty little secrets" advertising in Communications Arts magazine. (I hated that campaign and told them). Most of the work then was created by hobbyist and unusable (still is). Around 2005 it appeared that some of the pro photographers had started submitting work and the quality had dramatically improved but was still hard to find.
It was tough finding good edgy concept images at iStock (that hasnt changed either). 85% was dreadful and uninspiring and those happy shiny people were mind numbing. I have new clients tell me, We dont want that stock photo look. Interesting.
Fast forward. It appears that more and more of the pro photographers have heard about some of the money being made by the early contributors and begrudgingly waded into the microstock showground. This has been GREAT for buyers but a concern for the RM/RF empires (macrostock?). As the stock photo buying paradigm continues to shift and the micro vs RM/RF quality differences evaporates, I do not see how the RM/RF can survive except for editorial use and fewer big budget clients. Hell, who would by from those dinosaurs and pay (i.e.) $1500 annual usage for equivalent images found in micro for a ten bucks one-time fee?
So where is the industry going? Not sure but things need to change. There is too much weak content on the microstock sites which makes searches a long frustrating journey into the night. So art directors are sorting by DOWNLOADED in search of the risen cream, which only re-circulates a cloud of top feeder images and buries a lot of new quality work. Yuri claims 80% of buyers search by DOWNLOADED dunno for sure. The micros need to cull the herd. IS has about 7 million and SS sits at around 12. What happens when they are at 30 million? Or 80 million with the 80/20% rule of crap vs. gems? YIKES! Getty is not stupid thus Vetta was born the proverbial missing link.
Also, depending upon whose blog you believe, microstock sales are starting to flatten indicating that the pool of potential buyers has been filled. I dont believe this. Time will tell.
What I want? Id like to see iStock slash all the bottom feeder images, foster Vetta with a reasonable pricing structure (Dont get greedy Getty!) and figure a way to allow new quality images to rise to the top of searches.
Overall, I think the mircostock future is bright once the few growing pain issues are resolved.
OX
one mans opinion
TS was our favorite for advertising work since it was the most "out there" and worked well with marketing concepts. But that stock photo line-item on the estimates made clients nuts. And having to pay the annual usage fee was often a deal killer. Some of my national clients had the budget but most mid-sized company marketing managers did not like it and explaining it to the CFO was another issue. So we often shot what we needed.
I think I became aware of iStock around 2003 through their "Dirty little secrets" advertising in Communications Arts magazine. (I hated that campaign and told them). Most of the work then was created by hobbyist and unusable (still is). Around 2005 it appeared that some of the pro photographers had started submitting work and the quality had dramatically improved but was still hard to find.
It was tough finding good edgy concept images at iStock (that hasnt changed either). 85% was dreadful and uninspiring and those happy shiny people were mind numbing. I have new clients tell me, We dont want that stock photo look. Interesting.
Fast forward. It appears that more and more of the pro photographers have heard about some of the money being made by the early contributors and begrudgingly waded into the microstock showground. This has been GREAT for buyers but a concern for the RM/RF empires (macrostock?). As the stock photo buying paradigm continues to shift and the micro vs RM/RF quality differences evaporates, I do not see how the RM/RF can survive except for editorial use and fewer big budget clients. Hell, who would by from those dinosaurs and pay (i.e.) $1500 annual usage for equivalent images found in micro for a ten bucks one-time fee?
So where is the industry going? Not sure but things need to change. There is too much weak content on the microstock sites which makes searches a long frustrating journey into the night. So art directors are sorting by DOWNLOADED in search of the risen cream, which only re-circulates a cloud of top feeder images and buries a lot of new quality work. Yuri claims 80% of buyers search by DOWNLOADED dunno for sure. The micros need to cull the herd. IS has about 7 million and SS sits at around 12. What happens when they are at 30 million? Or 80 million with the 80/20% rule of crap vs. gems? YIKES! Getty is not stupid thus Vetta was born the proverbial missing link.
Also, depending upon whose blog you believe, microstock sales are starting to flatten indicating that the pool of potential buyers has been filled. I dont believe this. Time will tell.
What I want? Id like to see iStock slash all the bottom feeder images, foster Vetta with a reasonable pricing structure (Dont get greedy Getty!) and figure a way to allow new quality images to rise to the top of searches.
Overall, I think the mircostock future is bright once the few growing pain issues are resolved.
OX
one mans opinion
- Ploink.
