Imagine telling a writer that pictures are how we’ll communicate in the future. Andrew Delaney, global director of creative content, Getty Images, has a vested interest in visual communication but he’s probably going to be right for a while (writers, be grateful that “the only constant is change”.)
“Visual content has always been a key element in the art of brand storytelling and is becoming more important in the rapidly changing digital landscape,” Delaney recalled, “If you think of the way that human communication has evolved, we’ve gone from writing long letters for air mail to email to instant messages to tweets. This suggests that the speed of communication has become more important than the depth of communication.”
We seem to always end up attaching pictures to messages. Instagram grew from nought to 100 million users in its first two years (2010 – 2012). On April 12, 2012, Facebook bought Instagram for US$1 billion in cash and stock. “…Images and video content are growing in popularity – because a video is able to communicate message rich content faster than it takes to read a 140 character tweet.
Digital has not only changed how images are created, it has changed how accessible they are. Millions, rather than thousands, of images are created weekly now. Professional photographers siphon volumes of these off to stock image companies now. And more recently, stock images are in the form of videos. Because increasingly, video is the vehicle in which communications are carried.
“The rise of video is nothing new to advertisers and marketers. In fact we at Getty Images have been accommodating this gradual shift towards video for over 15 years because we have seen the way that technology is enabling content creators to capture content more easily and bring it to market quicker than ever before.
“This trend is driven by the continual consumption of visual content from existing technologies like cinema and TV, which have made audiences very visually very cognisant and fluent in a standardized visual language. Because of this, we have become very discerning about video. ”
“The need for video will rise exponentially as more advertisers begin to understand how video can help hook an audience quicker and for longer. The uptake of smartphones and proliferation of crowd-sourced content means that imagery is no longer defined by whether it is professionally produced or not; it’s about having a view point and connecting customers to a message that will affect them. ”
Getty’s partnership with Vimeo suggests that both companies consider that moving image will be useful to brands and businesses for a long time yet.
Getty’s main competitor Shutterstock also continues to grow. Latest figures show revenue for the third quarter was $59.6 million, a 41% increase as compared to $42.3 million in the third quarter of 2012. The company expands overseas, opening a European headquarters in Berlin, and driving image downloads to an all-time high of more than 25 million during the quarter,” said Founder and CEO Jon Oringer. “To meet these increasing demands for imagery, we’re adding thousands of high-quality images every day, offering more than 30 million in the collection.”
Fourth Quarter 2013; Revenue of $64 – $66 million. Full Year 2014; Revenue of $300 – $305 million, Adjusted EBITDA of $68 – $70 million.
Bespoke video production and our premium stock video brand ReeldealHD is a contributor to both Getty and Shutterstock with over 6000 HD clips.
We can also help you with a storytelling campaign with our bespoke video production services.
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