Professional libraries of well-lit, properly focused and cropped images that can be cheap to purchase would seem like an enticing option. By flipping through a few pages, you can find images that help project the scene and attitude of your copy. Just purchase a few photos and paste them on your page, and your done. What's not to love?

Misusing stock photos can actually hurt your corporate image.

Adding these images to your website, brochures, and other promotional material can elevate the professional image of your organization. When not done properly, it can make your company image look schlocky, impersonal, or even temporary. Follow these considerations to determine if and when to incorporate a library of stock images in your marketing campaigns.

Stock Photos Look Like Stock Photos

We are bombarded with thousands of advertising images every day. With all of this time looking at images, we can be quite adept at identifying candid shots, prepared scenes, and contrived ones. The quality of these images run from the very rudimentary to the most pristine. Despite their professional look, or because of it, stock photos tend to leap off of the page. They can be easy to spot for their overly polished and somewhat sterile look. Our perceptions of the company represented by these ads are formed by our interpretations of how the ads are presented to us.

Verisimilitude

A certain level of professionalism helps build trust in the company, but stock photos that appear as sterile or false representations of the company can adversely affect company sales. The photos used in ads must have a level of truth that represents the lifestyle, product, service, or company to the audience. Searching for photos that hold true to your message will help to merge the story of the image with your copy. Photos that are too unnatural will only distance your audience from you.

Anyone with the funds to make a stock photo purchase can do so. It is often too easy to hide behind a facade of stock photos. Customers or donors see an overly-artificial representation of the company, not a more realistic depiction of the company image. What is missing from the corporate image is verisimilitude.

Hey, I've Seen That Image Before

At my gym, I saw an ad for an island vacation getaway. Three of the photos used in the ad I recognized from a DigitalStock catalog that I have in my collection.

The images in the stock portfolio are designed to be used by multiple organizations. However, you have no control over which organizations also use the images that you purchase and use in your advertising. Are you using the same photos as your competitor? Were the photos used in an advertisement by a company whose values are contrary to yours? By using stock images, you lose control of the uniqueness of your message. Not everyone will catch disconnected representation, but some will.

What To Do?

There is a business for stock photos, and certainly a use for them. There must be a specific business need to use stock photos over other options. You must know the trade-offs for deciding when to use them and how to incorporate them into your message. There are a few alternatives to using stock photos:

• Hire a professional photographer. You can show the photographer stock photos that represent the message you are trying to convey with the ad. The photographer can use these photos to help set up a custom scene for your specific need.
• Hire a photography student. Photography students need projects to help hone their art. As with a professional photographer, explain the advertising message so that the students can prep the scenes according to your wishes. Your advertising campaign will help both the students and you achieve your own individual goals. The students will get practice in working with a client and representing you with their camera, and you can get a discounted deal on semi-professional photos.
• You or your staff take the photos. Unless you have a trained eye for capturing professional-looking photos, the results will be less polished than the prior two options. However, this option is often a good choice for grassroots non-profit organizations. Donors would much rather have more of their donation go to the cause than to be spent on the administrative overhead that stock photos or professional photographers would require.

Each decision you make should be justified. Stock photos, professional photos, or amateur photos all have their benefits and disadvantages. Keep all options in mind, and make the right choice to fit your current need.