#stockphotoproblems

She's a popular generic "success" image, isn't she?

Must be the NYC subway (area code 212). As shared by Photoshop Disasters of Facebook.

A Brazilian reasons to use original photography

I've seen a number of campaigns, over the years, in which custom photographers try to fight back against smaller agencies' use of shitty stock photos. But I like this one the best so far.

Brazilian fashion photographers Marcio Rodrigues and Marco Mendes, of Lumini, hired Lápiz, a Hispanic-focussed agency in Chicago, to peddle their services to the American market.

Let's hope the message gets through to the next generation of lazy designers and junior ADs.

Via Ads of The World

The latest stock photo meme

Stock photo cliché memes are a thing now, from women laughing alone with salad to things real people don't say about advertising.

This one, from Sad and Useless (via 22 Words) started last October and is pretty uneven, but some of them are worth sharing:

Yeah, ad people are cynical.

F'd Ad Fridays: Awkwardness begins before birth

Adland shared this.

"Baby looking through closed curtain" Link

Talk about starting life off on the wrong... ummm... nevermind.

The dirtiest word you can say in advertising

It's "formula".

We all do it, on occasion. But it's not to be talked about. It's a dirty secret that there are a number of "best practices" for creating a moderately (but not phenomenally) successful ad in any medium, but don't call it a formula!



Oh, shit.

Stock photos, and footage, have always been with us. But I have always been turned off by the content that tries to hard to dictate the concept. What the hell are WE here for, anyway?

But that's the whole point of Kelly Mason Productions' ad templates.

"While working with Getty Images, we noticed something interesting: customers would often buy multiple stock shots and piece them together to create their own, commercials. This gave us the idea for our commercial templates; we saw a market niche that was not being filled. So we decided to create pre-made, high quality commercials and sell them to advertisers at a highly competitive price. We want to give everyone the chance to have professional video content on their website. Our commercial templates allow this by drastically reducing the cost of creating powerful and engaging creative content."

Powerful, engaging, and.. generic? Look, I get it. There are many advertisers out there who believe that they just need to get good-looking branded content "out there" to keep up with the competition.

But here's the problem: just because your brand is superimposed on it, that doesn't mean it's your brand.

There is a reason big advertisers don't used canned content for anything but low-level tactical campaigns. Custom creative isn't just some guy coming up with a bunch of fluff; when done right, it's the result of a disciplined process that starts with your business objectives and builds around it.

Watching a bunch of artsy footage of twin women in a shower (clothed) while someone covers vintage David Bowie might look like something that will get you views, but then what? What impression has it left? How is your story being told?

I'm not worried about being put out of a job by this stuff, because smart clients will always want to be unique. But it still bugs me, because I believe it will result in someone wasting money that they could have put into a more honest engagement strategy.

Workplace sexual harassment is no joke...

...but these awkward stock photos are.

As Brandflakes for Breakfast points out, "Viewed alone, any one of these shots is a cheez festival of awkward, but viewed as a collection, they're funny and ridiculous, just waiting for captions."

Well, okay then...

"My eyes are down here"

Working for the undead was proving to be even creepier than expected.

 

"In Soviet Russia, porn surfs YOU!"

"See? Nair leaves your skin smooth and hair-free. You really should try it, Karen."

Having only transferred from Australia two weeks ago, Sheila had not yet adapted to life in the northern hemisphere.

"Nice beaver!" "Thank you, I just had it stuffed."

Okay, so those were kind of random. Give me your best (or worst) captions below.

Who knew stock photo agencies were so psychopathic?

We always knew they were pervy. Back in the days when we used to receive hundreds of pounds of stock photo catalogues every month, we'd flip through them for inspiration and stumble upon the requisite "artistic" female nudes. My Art Director friend Donna told me that it was a holdover from the days when most ADs were men. "They really know their audience," she'd snark.

But when I look at some of the pictures dredged up by a great new user-generated viral blog, Awkward Stock Photos, I wonder what kind of deranged lunatics they think they're appealing to now.



The Shutterstock description says it all: "An insane nurse in wearing hypno glasses gets ready to inject you with a giant hypodermic syringe". Yeah, that's exactly what I was looking for.



Not sure what they're smoking over at Corbis, but I'll bet it's damn good.



Getty gives us "woman with meat necklace". This one is part of a series, in case you feel selling prosciutto jewellery to women with altered skintones is campaignable.



I far prefer this Getty image for its honest approach: "I have no idea what your concept is about, so here's a dog with a donut on its head".

Go deep into Awkward Stock Photos. It's a worthwhile time-waster.

And yes. There are boobies.

Thanks to Vince for the link!