public relations

Creating Memorable Photos For Marketing

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Researchers at MIT recently published a study and online demo about trying to understand and predict image memorability. The study used 60,000 images and a few thousand participants.

A goal of this research was “[u]nderstanding why certain things are memorable…” so that it might someday be possible to create better images thereby “allowing people to consume information more efficiently.” (If you’re a photographer, please stop laughing.)

Researchers found that the most memorable pictures usually included – wait for it – faces or other human body parts. The least memorable pictures were those of generic scenes, especially landscapes and other types of nature. The researchers called their results a “trend.” Most photographers know that this “trend” has been around for 170 years.
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Platform Photography

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Canada’s 2015 federal election is days away and each party has released its platform. Let’s compare them from a photographer’s point of view.

The Obvious

• Green Party platform is 44 pages and 5.8 MB in file size.

• NDP brochure is 81 pages and 5.1 MB in size.

• Liberal Party platform is 88 pages and 10.6 MB.

• Conservative Party brochure is 159 pages and 37.4 MB.

That alone might be very telling.
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Prize-winning News Coverage

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Yesterday at 5:50am (Eastern Time), it was announced that a Canadian scientist from Queen’s University, in Ontario, had co-won the 2015 Nobel Prize for Physics. By 6:20am, or maybe even earlier, news media were calling Queen’s University media relations people to request handout pictures of the new Nobel Laureate.

Queen’s University was prepared and news media around the world had a portrait of the university professor emeritus on their web sites shortly thereafter.

The Nobel Prize-winning professor did his research at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in Sudbury, Ontario. News media called the lab early in the morning for handout pictures of the scientist and of its research facilities.
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Pricing Photography for Social Media

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Photographers, in the old days, priced their photography based on its usage. Generally speaking, editorial had the lowest price, public relations and corporate had a mid-range price, and advertising had the highest price.

This worked quite well for 45 years or so. Then Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter came along.

The line between editorial, public relations, and advertising can be nearly invisible with social media. When a company publishes pictures on social media, is that editorial, public relations or advertising?

Every type of business communication is a form of marketing. At the very least, social media should be considered public relations rather than pure editorial even though it may use editorial photography.
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The Importance of Good Public Relations Photography

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The Globe and Mail took a look at some of the photographs that Canada’s top three political leaders use in their social media. The newspaper asked a neutral third party, a US photo editor and consultant, to review the pictures.

Without knowing the leaders, their political parties or any other backstory, photo consultant Mike Davis gave his opinions of the pictures.

Stephen Harper photos:

“It’s very linear, very simplistic, not at all dynamic or deep. … It’s all very similar, it’s very distant, very removed from the person. It kind of represents him as an entity who does official things, and that’s about all you get. … These are just official records of events.”

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Is Your Business Ready For Its Close-Up?

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Why spend $0 on ad photography when you’re spending tens of thousands of dollars for a full-page newspaper ad?

Why would a national company use an amateur cellphone snapshot when its brand image at stake?

The Globe and Mail today published an ad supplement about franchising. The online version isn’t quite the same as the print version but it does have many of the same photos. The back cover of the print version has a full-page ad for a large pet care company. The amateur point-and-shoot photo missed the purpose of the business. It also missed everything needed in good photography.
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A Photo Opportunity Without Any Opportunity

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I photographed a press event in Toronto yesterday that was poorly organized, with bad lighting, terrible staging, and a bad media team. It was run by the Prime Minister’s Office.

The media had to undergo security searches by both police and sniffer dogs. The audience simply walked in.

There were strict rules for journalists: where to stand, where not to go, and what not to shoot. Reporters were barred from asking questions or conducting interviews. The audience had free rein to move about and stand anywhere.

The event’s setup was chaotic. Three political VIPs, the Canadian Prime Minister and two European Union presidents, were seated on a low stage at one end of a cramped, narrow room. The audience had to stand because there were no chairs. Photographers were confined to a low riser behind the audience.

This arrangement meant the three seated leaders were barely visible to the photographers or TV cameras, and they were spaced too far apart to capture a group shot.
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