In a news certain to shock many a traditionalist, the godfather of stock photography Tony Stone has joined the executive management team of microstock newcomer Vivozoom. Stone will lead the company’s creative strategy.
Why Vivozoom? Stone and Vivozoom founders Lawrence Gould and Tom Donnelly share history: all three have put in time with Getty Images. Gould is a former Getty chief financial officer. Donnelly was the company’s vice president of e-commerce. Getty acquired Tony Stone Images in 1995, and Stone stayed on through 1999.
Vivozoom is also notable for having started a trend: it was the first microstock to legally guarantee its imagery with a $25,000 warranty. “Corporate buyers of images were shocked when they discovered that images from existing microstock businesses are not guaranteed legally safe to use,” said Gould at the time of Vivozoom’s launch to buyers a year ago.
Since then, leading microstock agencies followed suit. By October 2009, both iStockphoto and Shutterstock announced similar protection plans.
Stone’s mission at Vivozoom is to help make the image buying process inspirational and efficient, compared to competitive imagery that the company describes as often mediocre and irrelevant. “You don’t need millions of pictures, you need really effective images, beautifully shot, that you can use safely, at a low price. That’s what Tony did for Getty Images— and that’s what we are doing at Vivozoom,” explained Gould.
Indeed, the Tony Stone brand was the cornerstone of the Getty collection for many years. In 1999, the year that Stone left he company, Getty’s sales of the brand grew by more than 30% in the fourth quarter. More than a decade later, the company still offers two legacy rights-managed image brands: Stone and Stone+.
As to Vivozoom, the jury is still out. Stone told Microstock Diaries that the agency’s customer service and focus on “relevance, relevance, relevance” will ensure its success. Yet many have questioned whether a newcomer can succeed against more established, better financed segment leaders. From a pro photographer and traditional agency perspective, however, the more important question is: what does it mean when the man who invented traditional stock returns to the industry on the micro-payment side?