When it comes to product advertising, photography is without a doubt what makes or breaks your ad. Photos of your product should grab the attention of the viewer and make them eager to find out more.
When it comes to product advertising, photography is without a doubt what makes or breaks your ad. Photos of your product should grab the attention of the viewer and make them eager to find out more. The image should stick in the viewer’s brain so that the customer continues to think about the product as their day goes on. But what makes commercial photography so tricky?
Taking a pretty photo of your product is rarely enough to create a lasting impact on the customer. In fact, it can be fairly tricky getting the perfect shot. Here are some of the reasons why commercial photography can be tough — and some tips on getting the most out of your product photos!
What Makes Commercial Photography So Tricky: The Product Needs to Shine
In any commercial photography, the product should always stand out. This doesn’t always mean that the photo should have the product front and center — it does mean that the viewer should be drawn to the object when they look at the photo.
What Makes Commercial Photography So Tricky: Commercial Product Photos Can Be a Little “Samey”
If you aren’t careful, product photos can start to look pretty dull. It’s important to make sure you and your photographer don’t fall into commercial photography cliches. While a plain white background can make your product pop, think about ways you can dress your image background to set a mood and create a more unusual image.
You Need to Focus on What Will Inspire Your Target Audience
Who is most likely to enjoy your products? Think about what photos will make them tick. Not all commercial photography is the same because not all audiences are the same. Make your audience the focus and work from there.
Commercial Portrait Photography is essential. There is no doubt about it. Corporate headshots are amazing tools that are used to represent who you are, not what you do. If you establish a reputable business portrait, you can instill the values of quality with your potential customers.
Corporate Headshots
Professional corporate headshot
You have numerous studios to choose from. You can set up a mini studio yourself and make a professional portrait in no time, but if you want the very best results you should plan on hiring a professional headshot photographer.
For corporate headshots, you need to make sure that you’re using proper equipment, adequate lighting, with appropriate lenses. And you’ll want to ensure that the images match your company’s brand and style.
Corporate Meeting and Event Photos
Holiday party portrait
Corporate meetings and events can make for some good photos that paint a fun, dynamic, and strict picture of your company. It is important to photograph these events accurately. An event management company needs to be very proficient and smart about how they handle photos of these events.
Planning corporate meetings has never been a simple task but planning it the right way could lead not only to some fantastic portrait photography but to some improved business practices.
Corporate Offices
Almost all your corporate portrait photography needs are going to be taken care of in your offices. You need to know how to make the office a fantastic photography place. To make sure that you always have a proper photo option, you can utilize the services of a mobile studio. Either hire someone to do it or do it yourself.
Bringing professional lighting, tripods, lenses, and cameras is a great way to turn any place into a quick and efficient photo studio. The only thing left to do is posing, and that is best done on the spot.
Corporate Parties, Outings, and Retreats
Event photography is about people.
If you’re working hard or hardly working, it’s crucial to capture the experience of all corporate parties, outings, and retreats. These are not only good team-building opportunities but also prove themselves to give great photo options.
Photographing your parties and outings is integral to painting a picture of your business as a fun, modern, and progressive one. Numerous different firms offer their outing and party service to companies, such as this one.
Commercial photography
Commercial photography includes, amongst several other specialties, the following:
Food Photography
There are numerous different ways you can improve your food photography game. Soliciting the services of a food stylist, a professional photographer, and a prop specialist is a great place to start.
Food photography can make use of models to demonstrate the qualities of the food product. Finding a model for your food photography is as simple as contacting your local modeling agency.
Product Photography
The only way you can paint an accurate picture of your product on your e-commerce website is by giving it a good photo. A good photo paints a picture of reliability, trustworthiness, and quality. The product is mostly judged by the way it looks. You can’t touch or feel the product through the internet, so manipulating the visuals is a fantastic way to present it.
However, stores can have numerous products, and photographing them can prove to be very expensive. DIY-ing this method is far simpler and cheaper and takes only a fraction of the cost.
Interior Photography
Interior Photography is a science, and takes a lot of time to create. Time of day can be critical in many locations, adding (or minimizing) daylight as appropriate. That nice sunset shot of a building can only be taken at one time of day, and all other images must be scheduled before or after that key shot. Some spaces may need morning light or late afternoon light, depending on elements such as windows and what side of a building a space may be on. It’s important to allow for these variables.
Industrial Photography
Industrial photography, while not glamorous, is very important, fun, and challenges. Taking good industrial photos can be a challenge. Inspiration is key, and you need some excellent industrial photo subjects to make a good photo.
Safety is the number one priority when it comes to this type of photography!
Some common subjects in industrial photography are:
Welders working
Processing plants
Shipyard and factory workers
Gas terminals
Nuclear reactors
Machinery
Assembly lines
Brochures and Catalogue Photography
Brochures and catalogs are not that challenging to photograph but are essential to document. Marketing tools are very important, though! You need to keep a couple of things in mind when doing so to best showcase your skills and paint the picture of the catalog and brochure in a fun and friendly manner.
Benefits of Commercial Photography
Corporate and commercial portrait photography together gives a better visual presentation for the visitors.
Enhances your corporate image
They improve your corporate image, and these days, image is everything! Be it on your website or any marketing collaterals, good corporate image speaks more than words.
Be Active on Social Media
A fantastic way to enhance your corporate image is by utilizing the services of social media. Look at what Wendy’s has done with a single twitter account. With their new laid back and modern perspective on social media, they have documented the growth of 10% in a couple of months.
You need to get into this. Create an engaging conversation about your service or products, be active in your community, and you’re going to be a social media professional in no time.
Increases your brand awareness
Raising your brand awareness is integral to creating a long-lasting impression on your potential customers. Awareness is everything, and you should work to improve it in any way you can. Commercial photography is a fantastic tool that works for this like a charm. There are numerous ways to do this, such as this one.
Improves your brand eminence
Consider hiring a professional to photograph your team at events to enhance your brand eminence. You can post these pictures on your official website for better promotion.
Increases Sales & ROI
Innovative photographs drive consumers to your product or service, thus increasing ROI and sales. Sales and ROI are significant and should be improved in any aspect available.
Conclusion
While pictures and good commercial photographs might sound expensive, you can’t afford to have shoddy ones. Another important facet to highlight here is the photo editing which can add life to your images. Hire a professional photographer to improve your photos, and you will reap the innumerable benefits of excellent commercial photography, and get your business on the next level, while also gaining an edge on the competition.
For many years advertisers have taken advantage of lower pricing for generic stock photography for their marketing efforts, whether for print advertising or for website use. Professional photography costs money, and stock photography is cheap. But there’s a dirty little secret in the use of stock. You may have no control over who else is using the same image to represent their company. This can lead to customer confusion and marketing embarrassment. Just ask the marketing departments at Dell and Gateway computers.
In the earlier days of stock photography it was harder to track who else was using an image. In one particular season, both Dell computers and Gateway computers selected stock images for their back to school advertising. Unfortunately they selected images of the same model, in the same wardrobe, in front of the same building, from the same photo shoot. And the ads ran at the same time! It somewhat waters down your advertising message when the same girl appears to endorse your competition!
How To Use Stock Photography
So how do you avoid this type of embarrassment? There are two primary ways. One method would be using rights-managed (RM) images rather than royalty-free (RF) images, and the other would be to use custom photography.
Royalty-Free Images
RF images are by far the cheapest. They are sold to anyone and everyone, and you have no idea who else may be using that image. You may use an online source like Tin Eye (https://tineye.com/) to search for other websites hosting your same image. Alternately you may use Google’s Image search to look for the same thing. That will give you an idea of how many times that image is being used online, although neither may know of all uses of an image.
Rights-Managed Images
Alternately you may purchase RM images, which come at a higher price. The benefit of RM is that you can ensure that either no one uses that image for a set length of time, or at least that no one else in your industry uses it. Pricing varies based on how much exclusivity you want and for how long. This is usually considered to be the best compromise between bulk RF images and custom photography.
The Safest Solution: Custom Photography
The other option would be to contract custom photography by a professional photographer. There are numerous advantages to this option, although it will come at a higher price tag. You have total control over all elements of an image – colors, style, your own colors or branding, and more importantly the usage. A professional photographer can create images using your own employees, or models you select, and can guarantee that only you have the right to use those images. Further, the models can be contracted to not work (or have their images used) with a competing company. Recent advertising showing the former “Can you hear me now” guy representing a competing telecom beautifully highlights this problem.
What message does this give your customers when a (now) well-known spokesman leaves your company to go to the competition?
Custom photography can and will reinforce your brand, and over time build a familiarity with which your customers can relate. Is it worth it? Only your customers and accountant can tell you that, but (in my humble opinion) images that are created specifically for your company are going to resonate more, which should lead to a greater ROI for you and your bottom line. To learn how custom photography can help your company give Morton Visuals a call at (888) 239-6213. We’ll be happy to brainstorm with you and your marketing department.
