The New Way
New Generation Media is a phrase we in the industry of buying and selling stock photos will hear more and more in the coming decade. Where'd it come from? It's a response to the increasing ways we
The good news: these evolving forms of image creation and image delivery have created new markets. As a photo researcher you should be aware of what's ahead....not only relevant to the traditional print media: magazines, books, textbooks, and catalogs, but also the exploding electronic media -- the communication companies utilizing television, video processing, CDs, and new concepts like digital video, cell phones, desktop image delivery, screen-touch educational tools, and on-demand picture retrieval.
Many of the latter elements are already in wide use, with the rapidly increasing familiarity of photobuyers and photographers with the marketing and delivery advantages of the Internet.
Classic commercial stock photography (the familiar scenics and generalized "situation" shots) as we've known it over the past decades will continue to be in demand, but the overwhelming supply of these generalized stock shots, available now on CDs and from generic discount sources on-line, will diminish their uniqueness, value -- and price tag.
The New Generation Media market is so vast that it utilizes what has come to be known as "micromarketing," the ability to isolate specialized markets and respond to them efficiently.
Micromarkets are specialized (niche) markets.
To survive in the New Generation Media, freelance photo researchers will become specialists themselves. The rules haven't changed, only the target. The demand by photobuyers for content-specific images will spur the new generation media photographers and photo researchers to focus on specific subject areas they specialize in, and then service markets whose needs match those areas. The generalist (the classic photo researcher) will fade.
In the new media, you will deal more on a personalized basis with photo suppliers, whose collections of photos match your specialized needs.
Thanks to the digital revolution, disputes, lost or damaged images, legal suits, will be rare. Your relationship with your photo suppliers will be worthwhile. Each new photographer you find in your paticular theme areas of interest will have a deep selection and variety of images. You will maintain a working relationship for an average of ten to twelve years with this photographer.
I've described the new generation photo suppliers who are beginning today to change their marketing system from broad-based to narrow-based. Because media today is becoming more and more narrow in its focus--each market targeting to a different narrow segment of the customer base out there--content needs, e.g. text, sound, pictures, are following the same pattern.
No longer can a product appeal to a wide audience. Instead, an advertiser or publisher selects a particular segment of that audience as their target. As a photobuyer of images, if the theme of your publishing house matches a photo suppliers collection-you have made a match.
The new generation media, thanks to computers, the internet, and sophisticated database technology, will appeal to consumers of special interest: medicine, education, agriculture, transportation; and not only the broad spectrum of each of these areas but special interests within these categories. Medicine, for example, separates into a multitude of disciplines like nursing, surgery, pediatrics, etc. And
New media conduits like CDs, micropaymant sites, Interactive TV, and even cell phones will require highly specific images -- to target their particular highly specific audiences.
Generic pictures (scenics, landscapes, general-situation scenes) will continue to adorn the walls of your office -- but you will be signing checks for content-specific images.
In the new generation of picture acquisition -- you'll be buying more in volume -- dozens of images at a time.
Because most publishers produce their products (magazines, books, video and educational programming pieces, etc.) in a "theme line" -- you will seek out photo suppliers who meld easily into your production chain.
Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of the weekly PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA Email: info@photosource.com Fax: 1 715 248 7394 Web site: www.photosource.com
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