Not enough time or budget for a photo shoot? If you're considering stock photography, there are two options: royalty-free and rights managed. Here's what you need to know:
In stock photography, you get what you pay for. Royalty-free stock photography may look like a bargain, but it has some serious drawbacks and can damage your brand's image if used the wrong way.
Royalty-free images are purchased outright, either as single images or on disc volumes in bulk, and can be used almost any way you want, on a billboard, a website, or a magazine ad 20 years from now.
The biggest drawback to royalty-free stock photography is the chance that a competitor might use the same image. Royalty-free collections are widely marketed, so you must gamble that the sheer number of images in all the competing royalty-free collections will make a duplicate use unlikely. It may seem like a safe bet, or so thought Dell and Gateway – who featured the same model and the same location in their 2004 back-to-school campaigns. Talk about a HUGE uh-oh!
Rights-managed images are "rented" for a specific purpose and at a specific price. They can tell if someone in your category has used that same image. Once you negotiate a fee with the stock house or photographer for a specific use, any other use is subject to an additional fee--which can get rather expensive. But you have to consider the alternative; do you really want to chance a competitor using the same image?