For Customers

Public Relations Laugh

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A political party in Alberta launched its provincial election campaign by unveiling its new bus. As is popular with most political campaigns, the bus was wrapped to look like a gigantic billboard. But no one bothered to properly proof the final layout.

A photo of the party’s female leader was placed in a rather unfortunate position over the rear wheels of the bus.

After a day of negative attention and being laughed at, the party says it will replace the $10,000 wrap. That’s an expensive do-over.

(Edit: a week later, the party is still being laughed at.)
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Advertising or Public Relations

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What’s the difference between advertising and public relations?

The short answer is:

Advertising is bought from a media outlet’s sales department.

Public relations is received free from a media outlet’s news department.

Guess which one has more credibility?
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How to save on business portraits

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How to save money on business portraits:

  1. Go to a department store or grocery store photo studio and get their $29.95 special. While you’re there, you can also pick up some shampoo, socks, cereal or any other supplies that you need. Sure, this will take a couple hours out of your work day but who doesn’t like to skip work?

 

  2. Have the lowest priced photographer on Craigslist come to your office to do the photos.  Hopefully this $79 photographer will show up and won’t leave you stranded because they couldn’t get time off from their day job.

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Choosing a business portrait photographer

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If you buy a cheap pair of shoes and they turn out to be uncomfortable, you stop wearing them. The money you paid for these shoes was wasted.

If you buy a more expensive pair of shoes and you enjoy wearing them, you’ll wear these shoes often. Over the life of the shoes, the additional money you paid, compared to the lower priced shoes, will be inconsequential becasue the value received is high.

Business portrait photography is a common offering from corporate photographers. Here in Toronto, business portraits can range from $50 to $1000. Even $2000 for a single portrait is not unheard of.

Why is there such a wide price range?
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Terms of endearment

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A common practice of professional photographers is to condition their work upon a set of Terms and Conditions. This is not new or unusual. Virtually all businesses have some sort of terms and conditions that govern their customer transactions.

For some businesses, their terms and conditions might be very simple: “Cash only. No refunds.”
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Split Decision

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Commercial photographers are sometimes asked if two (or more) customers split the cost of the photography licensing fee, can they both use the pictures?

For example, when a photographer is hired by a hotel to produce pictures of some newly decorated rooms, can the interior designer also use the pictures if the designer splits the cost of the photography with the hotel?

The answer is “no”.
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Fauxtographer

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If a professional photographer was featured on national TV, you might think the publicity would boost that photographer’s business. Well, not in this case.

In 2009, the BBC ran a news story about a commercial photographer and his business practices, or should we say, his lack of business practices.

This publicity caused the “fauxtographer” to take down his web site and disappear. Good riddance. Such scammers make all professional photographers look bad.
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