Ugh…I hate that phrase, “economies of scale,” when it has anything to do with creative work. But, unfortunately, it’s happening all over. The Wall Street Journal has this article about off-shoring digital advertising.
The thing to remember about scale, is that it is even more vital to hold onto your rights and license them. Better to make $20K over 5 years than $10K now.
Issues like off-shoring and price-shopping by major companies like GM are going to affect the creative industries more and more. How are we going to respond? How can we serve our clients and grow our businesses in the future? We need new ideas and need to be willing to look at ideas rejected in the past for whatever reason. We cannot rely on “this is the way it is done” for a successful future.
Leslie,
Your contributions are greatly appreciated. The difficulty I have and I would imagine many other photographers have is what are the “new ideas”? I can sketch more photo ideas than I will ever be able to produce due to time or resources, but commerce just doesn’t seem to have that many options when it is basically us vs them (I know you have written about that to the contrary), when them are large corporate entitiies which ONLY think about the bottom line.
Creavitity is a secondary thought for corporate America. Business is survival of the fittest. Large businesses will do whatever is needed to survive and profit. They have all the choices at their fingertips. We, meaning individual artist businesses, have far fewer options, resources, man hours, etc. when deciding our directions for survival while maintaining vision.
You bring up important issues, absolutely, but there is one fallacy in your argument–not all big corporations think ONLY about the bottom line if by that you mean getting there as cheaply as possible. Now, many do, but there are many companies that are willing to spend good money and can see that investment now will pay off in the long term. There are several examples of these kinds of companies in the book Buddha 9 to 5 by Nancy Spears–like Ritz-Carleton, Starbucks, and Timberland. Companies like these recognize the importance of creativity (like Apple, too) and value it as a part of their culture.
On our side, we do need to recognize, though, that we have to offer something more/different perhaps in order to be “worth” the price we want. I like to think back to the client of Richard Kelly who said “I hire photographers to solve problems, not create them.” What other problems can photographers solve for their clients? How can photogs help differently than only supplying great images?
Also, I think we need to start acknowledging the mistakes of the past (and today)–like that some photographers still hold images hostage–jacking up reuse prices because they know the client wants their images. Just because you have ’em over a barrel doesn’t mean you can’t be decent and fair. Photographers like that have made clients wary and we hear “I need all rights” more today because of those fears. So how can we alleviate those fears? Standardized usage prices could be AN answer, as could providing reuse rates up-front, in writing, guaranteed for each client/project.
Finally, I think we need to stop thinking “survival” and think “growth.” When you think “survival” you are automatically in a negative position–back against the wall, if you will. “Growth” on the other hand is a positive starting point–“we’re here…what can we do to get even better?” –Leslie