If you really think about it, when watching television, you have product placement all the time. —Jay Chiat
Could photographers benefit by charging for product placement in their photographs the way television charges for placement in their shows?
Sitting here trying to catch up on some news articles I missed over the weekend, I came across an article in the Media section of the New YorkTimes looking at how advertising has changed in a digital age. What caught my attention was all the talk about how an old ad trick, product placement, is making more sense than ever in content that is shown on multiple platforms. Creating separate content for every available platform is expensive, but if the brand is embedded in someone else’s content, the onus and cost for multi-platform delivery falls to someone else. This works for the brand not only in terms of saving money (which it may or may not do), but extending their reach to content viewers who may not have been familiar with the brand.
You’ve been watching this happen on television and the movies from the moment either began. Big brands, especially tobacco companies, were significant sponsors of early television because it put their name in front of people who weren’t consumers of their product. Brands became “household names” not so much because of the quality of the product but because of their association with someone’s favorite TV program. As media has evolved, we now see that same product placement being equally important to digital media, especially those that run on social media platforms.
Photographers have utilized product placement before as well, though they may not have thought of it in those terms specifically, and they probably didn’t get paid for the placement. When we’re doing portfolio work, or taking pictures that are not for a specific client, we often approach designers and boutique owners about borrowing wardrobe. This allows our photographs to look more professionally styled (rather than depending on what the model is carrying in her bag) and, in some cases, gives the designer or boutique a touch of free publicity. In an environment where cash isn’t in abundance, the system sort of works. Kind of. Maybe.
Let’s take the pictures in this article, for example. The wardrobe is courtesy of  local designer Shiela Ferguson, whose Jealousy Jane brand is reasonably well-known in the local market. Christopher Thompson did the hair and makeup. By mentioning them here, they both, ostensibly, receive some advertising benefit from being included in the photograph. That’s assuming the people viewing the picture are in the market for a new couture gown or want to drive to Atlanta, Indiana to have their makeup done.
Consider how we might have made this photo different, though. What if the models had been holding a branded drink, with the label prominently showing? Would the image have been more interesting if they had been eating menu items from a popular fast food chain? Perhaps the image would have taken on a different tone had they been giving the dog branded treats.
Traditionally, I wouldn’t have considered such a move because using branded items, especially if the brand name and/or logo is prominently visible, can lead to some significant legal problems. Brands spend a lot of money on their image and don’t want anyone representing them in a way contrary to the brand’s message. Trademark infringement can be costly if photographers aren’t careful about what they’re doing.
In today’s environment, however, there might be an opportunity for enterprising photographers to do something unheard of: make money by selling product placement in their portfolio images! Why not? Products in photographs make them more interesting, more relatable, and make the story come alive to a larger audience. Funds from product placement can then be used for other things such as set construction and hiring models that match the brand message.
Of course, you know there are challenges to such an approach. First and foremost, the photographer has to be able to demonstrate a quality portfolio that appeals to the brand they’re approaching. No one wants to pay for shitty images, nor do they want their products associated with those images. One can hardly blame them.
Second in line is going to be whether the photographer can demonstrate value in his product. In today’s marketing game, this is where numbers matter. How many followers does one have not only on Facebook and Twitter, but Snapchat, Instagram, Tumblr, Vine, and Periscope? The higher each of those numbers are, the more likely a brand might be interested in placing their products in an image. Know that they’re also going to look at how many likes and shares previous images have received.
A photographer would need to have the ability to deliver an audience the brand wants. If one is primarily doing pet photography, approaching your local Coca-Cola bottler probably isn’t going to work. Tag Hauer may be a tough sell if one plans on shooting farm animals. Being able to match your audience with that of a brand is critical, which means you need to know who is your audience. Look beyond your friends and find out who really pays attention to your work.
Being able to measure results is going to be important as well. Marketing departments have a strange fetish for numbers and if they do agree to pay for product placement they’re going to want to know that you delivered the number of eyeballs you promised. If you don’t, they won’t likely pay for placement again and, especially if you don’t even come close, they might demand a refund. That means you need some method for compiling and reporting viewer statistics. There are a variety of ways to do so, especially if you are paying for sponsored content on Facebook or Snapchat, both of whom have great backend analytics as for not only how many eyeballs but where in the world they were, how old they were, their gender, and even whether they later visited the brand’s  Facebook or Snapchat.
Yes, that is a lot of work and no, it’s not going to be an option for someone who asks a model to shoot and doesn’t plan a concept until she walks through the door. If a photographer wants to actually make money off their portfolio, they have to think more like Caty Burgess, Senior VP for media strategies at the CW network, who asked in that network’s upfronts, “Is the question, ‘What is an ad?’ or ‘What isn’t an ad?'”
Almost anything we create with a camera has the ability to be an ad, even art nudes. We have the potential to change the paradigm in our favor. Think about it and consider changing your strategy.
Selling this shot to Coke after the fact didn’t work, but it might convince them to do something similar in the future
A Mother’s Beauty
Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. —Erich Fromm
Mother’s Day brings plenty of memories, but we forget the beauty sacrifices mothers make for us.
I typically avoid the topic of mothers on Mother’s Day, partly because that’s what everyone is talking about and I’m not sure I can, or should, compete for your attention. Mother’s Day is also a little sad now that my own mother is gone. Some days it is better to let others do all the talking.
We romanticize our mothers in a sense, not that such a perspective is inappropriate, but our love for our mothers sometimes keeps us from seeing the depth of a mother’s sacrifice for her children.  She wouldn’t bring it up, of course, mothers rarely do. But what we remember of our mothers is seen through the perspective of a child. We don’t see what all went on in a mother’s life before she had children and everything she willingly gave up for us.
There aren’t many pictures still around of my mother when she was young. Her family was dirt poor and didn’t have a camera so the only pictures are those someone else took and gave her. What I see in those few pictures, though, is someone with a quick smile, sparkling eyes, and curly jet-black hair. I can understand why Poppa found her attractive. She was petite, like her other mother, with her father’s slim build; enough curve to be feminine, but not so much as to appear inappropriately sexual, which was apparently a thing back in the 1950s. She wore bobby socks with loafers and heels and gloves as was common at the time. Poppa said she was very prim and proper, very strict in her etiquette, but more than anything, he said she was beautiful.
Sure, everyone thinks their mother is beautiful, but we don’t see the same beauty that our fathers did. We see someone who is loving and caring and made sacrifices for us so that we could have everything we needed. Remember, though, that our fathers knew our mothers before we did and they saw her beauty in a different light. Â They saw a side of a mother’s beauty that we’re not all that comfortable discussing. Despite everything that might have happened later, all the arguments and divorces, the illnesses and emotional issues, before we were born our fathers thought our mothers were sexy. They wouldn’t likely use that word in front of us, but that’s what they were thinking.
I occasionally come across someone who has nude photographs of their mother taken before they were born. We don’t often think of artistic nude photography having existed much before Helmut Newton, but it most certainly did, and was secretly very popular. Â The difference was that they kept those photos to themselves. There was no Internet or social media on which to share them, so rarely did anyone else ever know they had been taken and it certainly wasn’t something they would just show to the kids. Typically, the photos are found by the adult child while helping their mother go through things later in her life. They elicit all knew stories about a side of our mothers we never considered: they were sexy.
Then, we came along and spoiled it all. The effect might not have happened immediately. Some women’s bodies handle childbirth better than others. Others, though, never lose the weight they put on carrying you. Hips that widened to facilitate your delivery didn’t snap back in place. If you kicked the wrong thing while you were swimming around in all that amniotic fluid, you likely created a physical problem your mother had to endure the rest of her life. She was thrilled to nurse you and cuddle you close, but because of that her breasts sag and she never looked the same in a swimsuit again.
You gave her stretch marks and those dark circles under her eyes from 18-plus years of never getting enough sleep and worrying about the trouble she knew you were getting into, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was. You killed her arches as she ran after you in shoes that were not meant for running. Her joints eventually became stiff and arthritic from all the times she put herself in unnatural positions to find that toy you had just dropped, or teaching you how to play leap frog, or picking you up and carrying you from the playground after you fell from the swing, again.
Before you were born, that lady you now call your mom paid more attention to how she looked when she went out. Her ensemble was carefully put together, even if it was more bohemian and less Chanel. She might have even worn makeup and had her nails done. After you came along, though, she was happy if what she was wearing didn’t have any fresh stains and if everything matched it was more by coincidence than design. Your mother’s stylist thought you were cute, but secretly hated you because your mother went from trying out different cuts and colors to short and easy-to-manage.
After  you came along, your mother didn’t go out with friends as often, didn’t travel as much, gave up on trying to fit into Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and damn sure wanted to make sure there was sufficient coverage between her and her Calvin’s. Almost everything that had gone into making her so physically desirable to your father either you ruined or she had to give up to care for you, except for one thing: Love.
And that’s what we remember on Mother’s Day: her love. After all, that’s what is important, right? Nothing else matters, at least, not now. A mother’s beauty isn’t defined by how “hot” she looks, how many heads she once turned, or how many hearts she once broke. A mother’s beauty is defined by how she could kiss a boo-boo and make the pain go away, or how she knew exactly when you needed her to make those special pancakes, or how she could mend a broken heart then help you plot revenge. She likes that definition.
Mothers don’t care about what they’ve given up for you. The love you and, in the vast majority of situations, would do everything all over again (with the benefit of a little wisdom from the experience). She loves you, you love her, and that makes everything beautiful enough for her. But don’t you ever forget that she did make those sacrifices. I’ll tell you what she might not: you owe her. Big.
A poet, whose name escapes me at the moment, once said that a mother’s beauty is defined is defined by the grace and compassion of her children. Your mother gave up a lot for you. Make her beautiful, damnit.
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