Fotolia has created an add-in ribbon for market-leading word processing and presentation applications Microsoft Word and PowerPoint 2007. The ribbon (Microstoft’s new term for what used to be called a toolbar) allows customers to log in, search and purchase images at fotolia.com.
The ribbon brings images available for sale directly to users, inside of the most commonly used suite of software applications. This will not only boost user productivity, it will undoubtedly boost Fotolia’s sales by making it easy to add low-cost photos to do-it-yourself personal and business projects completed by non-designers.
Importantly, Fotolia has done this with the requisite buy-in from Microsoft, with which the New York microstock already has an existing relationship (some free Fotolia content is offered through Office 2007). Group manager of office.com Rob Ashby referred to the new Fotolia tool as “a great productivity win for our customers.”
Another important industry first to come out of a microstock agency, the add-on underscores the contrast in the way microstock and traditional agencies do business. The fact that buyers are no longer willing to pay traditional prices is not the only issue facing the traditional side of the business. Traditionals lag behind in technological innovation and, perhaps more importantly, largely limit themselves to pull marketing while microstocks aggressively push product through new technologically driven channels.