Problems with Stock Photos

In theory, stock photography is great. It’s a cheap, easy and fast way to select just the right photograph for your marketing collateral from millions of available images.

In reality, however, stock photography can pose some pretty big challenges:

• When used in a series of marketing materials (i.e. set of product brochures), using different stock photos can result in the series of pieces feeling inconsistent. The same holds true for using different images for various pieces in an ad campaign or together on a page. If using stock images for a series of materials, the images should also be part of a series.
• Stock photos are often times out of date. It is important that the image appears to be current, and that the technology (i.e. ATM machines, cell phones) pictured are up to date. Outdated images have a negative impact in creating customer perceptions.
• Many stock photographs, especially the royalty-free/cheaper images, can be sold to more than one company. This can have a negative impact on your efforts as well; for more, see the November 2006 WSJ article: When Marketers See Double.
• Stock photos can seem staged. This can hurt a campaign, especially when a campaign is customer-focused, and the image is obviously not a photograph of an actual customer of the institution. People can connect on a different level when a campaign features photos of real customers, or at least photos of people that could be customers.