With the rise of platforms like Getty Images, Shutterstock, Adobe Stock, and many more, scaling companies found a much cheaper route to branding their company visually. Instead of paying thousands of dollars to add custom visual components to a domain, they could simply pull commercial images off platforms that ran off a public database and operated off a public licensing system. The problem? Authenticity. When people come to websites, they are able to recognize when your company imagery is pulled from a stock site. Throughout this article we will discuss the following topics and at the end give some quick tips on how you can modernize through original content:

Harmful to Brand Originality
Harmful to Employer Brand
Sacrifices Vision
Time to modernize

Hurts Brand Originality

The best brands in the world all share a commonality: originality. People follow authentic people, groups, organizations, and companies because they feel they can align with or trust these people and organizations. We are either excited, inspired or encouraged by brands to follow and buy. Originality is executed through our senses. We can either taste, smell, listen, touch, or see originality.

There are more Small Businesses able to scale rapidly than ever before and this is because they understand brand originality + have accessible platforms now to advertise themselves. Unfortunately, most B2B companies are not recognizing this shift. Massive organizations continue to use stock imagery for “cheaper”, rather than investing in images that are custom to them and can add to their brand originality.

Companies like Nike recognized this shift a long time ago and continually invested in advertising. in 2022 alone, Nike invested $3.2 Billion into advertising and partnered with more freelance artists and small creative agencies than any other shoe brand. The return? $46.7 Billion as of now. The company invests 7% of Revenue (a recommended advertisement investment for any company) into original content. Content that is specific to Nike and it works.

Hurts Employer Brand

Companies that use stock images are limiting their future talent pool. Stock imagery strongly lacks diversity and predominantly displays white men, especially when it comes to corporations. Whether a company is aware of it or not, stock images can reinforce implicit racial bias. Companies unintentionally steer qualified employers away through their use of non-diversified images.

Employers wonder where the innovative people are. Where the creatives are? And why do they continue to recruit the same talent as before, only seemingly getting worse each year? The answer is people want to work for innovative, diversified, fun, inclusive companies now. Potential workforces are scanning websites, social media, and LinkedIn to ensure that the company they go to work for has not only strong brand originality but also a strong employer brand.

A Sacrifice to Vision

Stock Images may be the quickest and cheapest route to the first paying customer. However, commercial images that work to brand and align with a specific company lead to long-term success. Entrepreneurs are long-term thinkers when it comes to the timeline of company growth, but not marketing.

What do I mean? In 2011, Patagonia put out an ad with an image of one of their most popular jackets at the time and the text “This jacket comes with an environmental cost higher than its price. Don’t buy what you don’t need.” The company most likely lost sales short term. However, sticking to their vision of building the best product while causing no unnecessary harm, and using business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis, they felt it necessary to discuss the negative environmental impacts of their own product. In the long run, Patagonia has grown by more than $250 million since.

Companies that build platforms and websites with imagery that pertain to what that company stands for maintain their vision and win long-term.

Stock Images are a Thing of the Past

We understand B2B websites and advertisements are trying to convey far more complex messages than selling a single product through an image. There will be a B2B stock image revolution though. Meaning, corporations that continue to fill their websites and social platforms with stock imagery, will cease to grow. So, what are some alternatives to stock images?

For small businesses, create content in-house or hire a local photographer looking to build their portfolio for advertising.
Hire a graphic designer. Have visuals constructed that tie into your brand vision throughout the company site.
Invest in commercial photography for your site, as long-term this pays off dividends.

Nike ad spend worldwide 2022 | Statista

NIKE Revenue 2010-2022 | NKE | MacroTrends

Why Do Billion-Dollar Companies Use Stock Photography? (emotivebrand.com)

How stock images can reinforce racism (axios.com)

How a Short-Term Sacrifice Can Lead to Long-Term Benefits (adweek.com)

Patagonia 2011 sales surpass $500 million; CEO explains restructuring (outsidebusinessjournal.com)

Why Stock Images are harming your brand.

Internal or External Creative Agency?