During his recent conference call, Jonathan Klein, CEO of Getty Images, outlined a number of priorities for the company. They included:
1. Stabilizing the Creative Stills Business. Sales of creative stills (RM and RF) have been in decline for 2007, and to a certain degree, back into 2006. (See Traditional Imagery Volumes Tumble). The top priority for the company now is to get units licensed and revenue at least to a stable level.
2 . Launching Gettyimages.com. The new site, currently in Beta, is expected to be officially launched before the end of September, or possibly shortly thereafter.
3. Adding new license models and services are part of what the company sees as a solution to the traditional Creative Stills challenges. No specifics were provided about these models and services, but some changes are in the planning stages.
4. Expanding its new, customizable subscription product. Premium Access is designed for large users of traditional RF images. Getty has selected 100,000 of its Photodisc, Digital Vision and Stockbyte images and made them available for a flat price for one month or one year. If a customer can find three images in this collection, a one-month subscription will save money. If a customer can find nine images from this collection during a year, buying a one-year subscription is cost-effective. The price varies depending on whether the use is for Web or print.
5 . Provide a service for value conscious users, whose need is online-only Within the next quarter, the company plans to launch a service that addresses this segment of the market.
6. Expand their multi-site strategy, particularly with Punchstock, with emphasis on the value conscious part of the market.
7. Aggressively move into multimedia. "There is rapid growth of online and mobile multimedia platforms. This trend will accelerate as new media absorbs an increasing share of customer attention and marketing spend," noted Klein. "We have decided to make aggressive moves into multimedia. Soon, all of our photographers will be covering news and entertainment with video cameras and will also be wired for sound."
"We are offering customers many more multimedia products, and they include still images, footage, sound-sometimes narration, sometimes music, sometimes both. These products offer something to customers that help them serve up the best, richest content without the usual time and expense of creating it themselves."
8. Developing new initiatives in editorial imagery, service businesses, footage, micropayment, music and direct to consumers. Getty expects such initiatives to grow faster than the traditional Creative Stills business over the near to long-term.
9. Increasing regular contact with key customers. "We have assigned more accounts to sales people. We have more outbound activity. The advent of market development executives that I've talked about in the past is working, as well as the increase in direct customer contact," says Klein. He added that Getty has hired "the majority of our MDEs, and have assigned all or our top accounts."