The business side of photography
Hotel Client: What?! You want $1,500 just for some pictures of our chef?!
Photographer: What do you think the job is worth?
Client: Maybe $250.
Photographer: Okay, for $250, I’ll come by your hotel sometime in the next couple of weeks whenever I have some spare time. When I’m there, hand me your cell phone and I’ll take a few pictures with it. You pay me $250 and the job is done. How does that sound?
Do you have a spare $800,000?
If yes, then HTT Technologies has a nice automobile just for you.
HTT (High-Tech Toys), in Quebec, has designed its 750-hp Pléthore LC750 supercar for a very exclusive audience. HTT has been quoted as saying that its target customer is the billionaire auto enthusiast. (The 390-km/hr Pléthore LC750 is cheap when compared to the 415-km/hr Bugatti Veyron Super Sport which is $2.5M).
If the price tag isn’t exclusive enough, the company says it will build only 99 cars. Exclusive design, exclusive price, exclusive production.
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The key to enhancing business image and winning consumer trust is through the use of marketing collateral.
Marketing collateral refers to the various forms of communication a business publishes on its own. By contrast, paid placements, such as advertising, are not a form of marketing collateral. Advertising is part of the sales process whereas marketing collateral supports the sales process.
Advertising often fails because consumers simply don’t trust ads. Claims made in an ad are not always backed up by any information. Customers are skeptical because they know advertising is only concerned with taking their money.
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In this blog’s About Us page, I mentioned some of the ways my pictures have been used. I jokingly mentioned that my photos have never appeared on a coffee mug or mouse pad. Well, one of those has changed.
Companies often have an employee lunchroom or staff lounge. A not uncommon problem is that some employees leave behind dirty cups or other mess on a table or in the sink.
Enter behavioural psychology.
A small Toronto company has given each of its employees a free coffee mug with their business portrait on it. Their mug on a mug. The office will no longer buy disposable cups.
Since each person now has their own coffee mug with their face on it, the company hopes that the employees will be motivated to clean up after themselves. If someone leaves behind a dirty cup, everyone in the office will immediately know who the culprit is.
The employees may think they got a free coffee mug but they really got entered into a psychology experiment.
A recent Black Star blog post by Jim Pickerell gives advice to photographers who want to licence their stock pictures. He’s been involved in the stock photo business for over 40 years.
Pickerell writes that since there’s such an oversupply of stock images, photographers need to get their pictures seen by photo buyers. He then goes on to list some numbers and statistics.
The interesting takeaway from this article is for any business that’s thinking about using stock pictures instead of commissioning its own original photography.
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From A to Z, here are some lesser-known photography phrases:
Aggressive pixels – A picture shot extremely tight. For example: when all others are using a 70-200mm lens, the photographer using a 400mm lens is said to be shooting aggressive pixels.
American Idol Effect – A reference to photo sites like Flickr.
Autotard – A photographer who always uses their camera on the “Auto” setting.
Available darkness – Shooting in a dark location without flash.
Baby zoomer – A wide-angle zoom lens.
Bacon assignment – A job that pays much more than it’s worth.
A year ago, I wrote a post about a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) survey which showed that Canada’s top CEOs earned the equivalent of the average annual Canadian income by 2:30 PM on January 3rd, (based on 2009 numbers).
The CCPA released this year’s survey results (based on 2010 numbers). Canada’s top CEOs now earn the equivalent of the average annual Canadian income even sooner.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ annual look at CEO compensation reveals that by 12:00 noon on January 3rd, the first official working day of the year, Canada’s Elite 100 CEOs (the 100 highest paid CEOs of companies listed in the TSX Index) will have already pocketed $44,366. It takes the Average Joe an entire year, working full-time, to earn that same amount.
This represents a 27% pay increase from the previous year. The average Canadian received a 1.1% increase.
The CCPA has a depressing pay clock here.
