In his
Kaptur blog last week Paul Melcher pointed out that in the near future brands may want to wholly own the photography they produce so they can then give it away just as Apple did with music when they partnered with U2 to make a massive release of U2’s new “Songs of Innocence” album.
According to the New York Times, “To release U2’s album free, Apple paid the band and Universal an unspecified fee as a blanket royalty and committed to a marketing campaign for the band worth up to $100 million, according to several people briefed on the deal. That marketing will include a global television campaign, the first piece of which was a commercial that was shown during the (announcement) event (in Cupertino, CA.).”
“This is a gift from Apple to their customers,” Mr. Guy Oseary, U2s new manager said. “They bought it and they are giving it away.”
When it comes to raising brand awareness photography offers a lot more potential and flexibility than music. Making great images available for free could do a lot to raise brand awareness, particularly if the brand’s identity is somehow part of, or uniquely connected to, the image. In fact brands have been doing this for a long time with what is known as a “press release.”
The downside of the press release is that there is no way to estimate how many press organizations may use a free picture. However, in today’s environment brands can sidestep that problem by using social media and getting wide distribution of the photo themselves. Some brands are already using their Instagram accounts for this purpose.
Such deals are most likely to be made with photographers who do custom assignment shoots for the brand, rather than the brand licensing use of specific stock images. Some brands may approach stock photographers who have unique styles and ask them to do a custom shoot. In such rare cases the photographer should try to assess the global interest in the product being promoted before quoting a price.