One of the long standing pitfalls when using Royalty Free photos has always been the non-exclusive nature of that sales model, meaning anyone can buy it, and anyone can use it. But the honey-scent of low cost often proves too attractive for most budget conscious users. You can almost hear the silent words, “What are the chances…?”.
Well, the chances may be small, but every so often, a company that should have invested a little more money in protecting their advertising and branding campaigns gets stung by taking the cheaper road.
Computer manufacturers ASUS and MSI have now been caught using the same royalty free photo to promote their respective products. Each company photoshopped their own product into the scene, ironically where the original shot apparently had the young boy modeling an Apple laptop.
I have to wonder what it would be like to be a fly on the wall at the corporate offices at ASUS and MSI when the upper management hears about this. Will they say, “No big deal” to all the wasted dollars on these ads that now have muddled themselves with a direct competitor? You can be sure they’re probably hearing about it for sure, thanks to places like PC Pro, TweakTown, and Mobile Magazine reporting on this.
Perhaps the memo ordering heads to roll has already been sent down the pipeline. In my minds eye, I see two poor graphic designers packing up their desks, muttering to themselves something about how they were told (by the same people now firing them) to use Royalty Free photos to save money.
See more fun examples on my Royalty Free page.
Funny thing is that I doubt the graphic designers would be faulted in these cases. From my experience in the marketing world the decision for such image use comes down to the Creative Services manager or director. Play with fire you’re bound to get burned. I hope more examples like this pop up. I think it will sway people from such image use for campaigns of this scale. Microstock works well for very generic things like a person holding a blank business card perhaps, but when you’re featuring a product…. microstock should be the last option.
Examples like this are popping up more frequently every day. A quick search reveals many examples, and it usually involves computer companies for some reason. Search for “Everywhere Girl” and you’ll see an amazing example.
It would be interesting to know which person/position is responsible for the decision to use RF rather than Rights Managed. I wonder if anyone calculates the brand damage of these sort of bungles.
On the positive side, they’re fun to spot and share!
-Lee
I think the fault might lie more with the ad agencies the companies used than with the companies themselves. I wonder if the two computer companies used the same ad agency.