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Brick No149: How To Use Photos
By Matt Weston, Thursday 16 June 2005 More Links, Less Ink Note: mostly I try hard to write your weekly Bricks so you don't HAVE to open every link to follow the plot. And I know from feedback - and from the power surges - that many of you put on the kettle and printer the minute the email drops. And you can't open links from a print out. But this week is different because it's about photos. I can't show you them unless you open the links. And without them, you probably won't be able to keep up with the point. How To Use Photos A picture, they say, can be worth a thousand words. But I'd say these ten pictures taken between November 1979 and January 1989 are worth a whole lot more than that. Sure, it's not a business example. I first saw the photos used by the Met in Hackney last year. But have you ever, ever seen an idea more potently sold? If you can find a way to get that same message across in ten thousand words or less, you're a better copywriter than me. A better copywriter than David Ogilvy, even. Legendary adman Ogilvy once listed 15 ways to make your photos work for a living. I'm not going to repeat all 15. It's only fair you buy his book for that. But, with the Hollywood Police photos in mind, here are the most choice Ogilvyisms for today - "1 The subject of your illustration is all important. If you don't have a remarkable idea for it, not even a great photographer can save you." "2 The more [story appeal] you inject into your photographs, the more people look at your advertisements." "4 It pays to illustrate the end-result of using your product. Before-and-after photographs seem to fascinate readers. In a study of 70 campaigns whose sales results were known, Gallup did not find a single before-and-after campaign that did not increase sales." "7 Keep your illustrations as simple as possible, with the focus on one person. Crowd scenes don't pull." "15 When you advertise products for use in cooking, you attract more readers if you show a photograph of the finished dish than the ingredients." All apply - yes, even number 15. The "finished dish", sadly, is the 1989 mug-shot. The Finished Dish Some more thoughts from me - (1) The "finished dish" should be real, not rubber. A common mistake is to buy a stock photo of a smiley model to use on your website or in your brochure. Lots of people do this because they think some random face culled from a catalogue is a shortcut way to illustrate a "finished dish" of a real, happy customer. But these canned photos aren't worth the space they take up, let alone a thousand words. I've talked about this before in Brick No139, "The Man Who May Make Specsavers Rebrand". An excerpt: "The Glasses Direct site, like the Specsavers site uses canned photos. Not paying customers but paid models. [Jamie should] can them. Instead, get happy customers to send in self-taken photos of them in their new glasses. If they're blurry, wonky, amateurish, that's best. Put them on the homepage. Like Joi Ito's Random Faceroll." (2) Look at LEGO It seems to know how to sell a "finished dish". But what if it included a feed from this Flickr collection? (3) I added 42 new Brickies to the Directory the last week And Angus Cheyne latest addition. Eight great photos on his site, including two "finished dishes". Remember to sign up: back to top |
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