Paid Placements

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When photography is licensed for editorial use, public relations, or certain other uses, there will often be a licensing clause that states that the picture(s) may not be used for “paid placements.” A few folks have asked what this means.

“Paid placement” is simply any use that requires the company to pay a fee to have the photo(s) published. Paid placement includes, but is not limited to, advertising.

One could argue that all business communication is a form of advertising. But let’s look at three general types of photography usage.
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Free Samples

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A little while ago, I did a small public relations photo for a yogurt product being given away. After the photo, the young lady gave me – you guessed it – a free sample of the yogurt. It was so delicious that I later bought two boxes of the stuff.

The purpose of a free sample is to eliminate all risk to the consumer. The customer has nothing to lose by trying a free product. There will never be any buyer’s remorse when it’s free. Not many folks are willing to take a chance on a product that they’ve never used. Why risk their time and money on the unknown?

Welcome the free sample.
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Photo License Is Common Sense

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Got a phone call from a business, here in Toronto, looking to hire a photographer. The caller said that they’ve never hired a photographer before and admitted they weren’t sure “how it works.”

The company wanted executive portraits for its web site. Business portraits are the most common request that a corporate photographer gets. There are many uses for such pictures and smart businesses like to update their photos every couple of years or so.

I suggested the best way to do the photography, how the pictures could be delivered and then gave an approximate cost for the required usage. That last bit, about the price depending on the usage, caught the caller by surprise.

Aha! Licensing.

 

Here’s the deal about licensing:

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Advertise You Not Them

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There are a lot of folks who have either an iPhone or a BlackBerry. I know a couple of photographers in Toronto who carry both: company-issued BlackBerry on one hip and a personal iPhone on the other.

If you have one of these devices, and haven’t done this already, you may want to remove the third-party advertising from your e-mails. Unless, of course, you want to brag that you have a new toy. :-)

By default, e-mails sent from an iPhone end with “Sent from my iPhone.” Similarly, e-mails from a BlackBerry end with something like “Sent from my BlackBerry on the Rogers Wireless Network.”

Replace these with a promotion for your business.
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Half-full or Half-empty

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If you weighed a 10-lb bag of potatoes and found that it weighed only 5 lbs, would you be concerned?

If a store clerk said that a 10-lb bag of potatoes weighs 10 lbs only if you buy it in the morning, would you be confused?

Let’s talk about camera flashes, in this case, the Nikon SB-800.

I was shooting a photo today with a Nikon D3 and an SB-800 flash manually set to 1/2-power. Deciding to add more flash, I upped the flash to full power. Surprise! The flash exposure remained the same. What’s going on and where’s my extra light?
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Corporate Journalism

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Is “corporate journalism” an oxymoron?

How about the terms “business journalism” or “editorial business”? Perhaps “editorial marketing” might be more accurate?

This post is about how businesses can benefit by having editorial content and even outright journalism on their web sites. This is not to be confused with public relations or marketing. The benefits of quality and timely editorial content can equal and even surpass a company’s public relations or marketing efforts.
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Don’t be the Ass in Assignment

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Here are a few examples of self-proclaimed “professional” photographers in action. All of these happened over the past two weeks at various photo assignments.

• Them: My hard drive crashed! What should I do?
  Me: Do you have a backup?
  Them: No.

Over a week later, after this person lost the previous job’s photos and had to carry their iMac back to the store to get a new drive installed and then had to re-install all their software:

  Me: Do have a back up of your new hard drive?
  Them: No.

 

• Them: My camera battery died!
  Me: Don’t you carry a spare?
  Them: No, because I’ve never needed one before.
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