Don’t let anyone sell you the line that web use isn’t worth very much. According to the AP, $10 billion was spent on online advertising in the first six months of 2007, 21% of that for display ads. That’s $2.1 billion for ads that probably used images.
And growing.
So … how do we turn this around? Web usage prices are a joke when compared with how the images impacts the success of the ad or with the percent of the ad buy.
One problem is that images have been marketed buy file size. The standard has been set; expectations are difficult to manage now that tracks have been laid.
You all know the difficulty we’ve always had educating prospects, clients and peers regarding usage licenses, how do we now ask them all to abandon the current – small file size = cheaper – mentality?
How? We stop asking and start stating. We don’t ask our buyers to pay whatever for usage, we tell them that is the price to use the image. Xusage =Yprice…period. We negotiate by lowering the price IN EXCHANGE for something–less/diferent usage, including issues of geography, exclusivity, etc.
Every one of the photographers I know who has raised his/her prices and stuck to them has lost maybe a couple of gigs but has MORE than made up for it by getting better rates for the gigs s/he gets and, bonus, s/he is treated more respectfully by the clients.
Of course, you (generic “you”–not Bruce in particular) can only do this IF you make great work. If you aren’t, then you need to look at your fundamentals–like why are you running a creative business in the first place?
🙂 –Leslie