Positive Exposure – The risk and reward of photography for charities
When it comes down to marketing your charity through a big brand campaign, fundraising, individual giving, lottery or legacy campaign; images are everything. That’s why charities turn to creative agencies to produce brilliant, eye-catching photography.
Using bespoke photography will create a unique look and style for your charity. It will individualise your photography style to appeal to your audience, capture their emotions and increase brand awareness. These images will be used throughout your brand and fundraising campaigns across the charity for many years to come. It will help build a recognised look and feel that people become accustomed to and may well gain supporters’ respect and trust. Many charities value their brand and will spend money on costly re-brands, new words, new logos and proposition messaging, yet when it comes to marketing in the real world all this expense can be wasted when working alongside poor stock images, that many of your peers will also be using. Photography is as important as your shiny new brand. It makes you authentic and tells authentic stories.
Photography is an investment
Invest in your charity brand with confidence. Invest over time and build your online brand photography database whereby all relevant people have access to easy search facilities. Create a plan and build the image bank database over time. These images will be available for years to come with no expensive license fees to pay for year on year. Your photography style should reflect the personality of your charity’s DNA just like all your other communication channels do such as tone of voice, copywriting, TV, radio and marketing collateral.
Models vs Real people
Both options work well. Until they don’t. We’ve used both, hundreds and hundreds of times over the years and both have their merits. It’s often down to budgets which direction to go, or even a mix. Professional models can be great to work with, as you’d expect, but you’ll be surprised how many have limited experience, especially when it comes to children. To avoid this situation, and de-risk, I’d suggest working closely with your agency/photographer. They should have a close working relationship with a trusted model agency partner, to offer you the right people to use for the right scenario. This limits any risk of children deciding they don’t want to perform on the day, or becoming overwhelmed and scared by what can be an intimidating experience. Trust me, this can happen. Real people can be great if you can find them. Interesting people with strong personalities often work best, especially if your story is case study or testimonial-driven, it becomes 100% authentic, elevating the integrity of your organisation.
Risk Management
It’s our top priority as an experienced agency. So you’ve planned your content for your photo shoot, you have a spreadsheet with 40 shots to produce over a 2-day shoot. You need 3 slightly different variations of each shot, you’ve got your 4-6 models onboard and image rights nailed down. You’ve arranged and paid for your locations, indoors/outdoors possibly hired a property or studio, you’ve spent the last week hiring in props through Amazon (opting to return anything you can get away with!). Written up the call sheet, arranged travel both ways, hired the photographer, the assistant and any extra lighting, got your relevant insurance covered. You have the look and feel you want to portray and the weather forecast is looking spot on for the day, you believe all communications are understood between the charity, the photographer/agency and what is expected to be produced and delivered.
But when things go wrong – and something always does – your dream scenario can turn into an utter nightmare and go wrong at the flip of a coin. With an important photoshoot, the pressure is high, the stakes are high and the risk and reward can be extreme. Failure to organise and deliver a photoshoot can be embarrassing, very expensive and have an impact on one’s career. That’s why risk management is our top priority.
Over my 30-year-plus career in art directing and planning photoshoots across various sizes and scales, working across all different types and styles of photoshoots: from on-the-move hand-style photography, capturing live-action footage incorporating energy and playfulness, which we use for many of our sporting fundraising campaigns such as runs, walks and hikes, right through to managing large scale 2-week photoshoots abroad. Even down to more controlled studio-based photography sessions which have less risk, but still always a risk of going wrong. So, from our experience, I’ve pulled together some red flags to help you minimise risk. Many of you will know all this, but many won’t.
Communication.
It’s obvious I know, but it’s 100% essential that the agency, photographer and the charity all align and understand exactly what is to be achieved and what needs to be delivered with every detail of the budget signed off.
Content
The agency, photographer and charity need to agree on exactly what is to be photographed. This is essential, and needs to be planned and agreed upon upfront. If organised well, there is usually wriggle room for both parties, adding extra shots if there is time or deleting less important shots if time runs out. The number of shots must be agreed upon, not just because of the extra time and confusion on the day but because of all the extra processing and re-touching time that is extra work, and probably not costed for.
Usage Rights
It’s essential to nail down all rights and license fees with the model agency and the agency/photographer, with no hidden surprises. Some licenses can be complex depending on usage. Costs can be different between use on social, print, TV or out of the home. And of course, the correct insurances need to be covered. Are you paying for 2-year usage, 3 years or over a lifetime? Are the usage rights across digital only or for a fully integrated campaign across digital, print, TV, or out-of-home? Talk to all parties involved, much of this can be down to negotiation. My suggested option would be to get the agency to do it.
The No Show
Photoshoots can take days to organise. Diaries, travel, logistics, legal requirements, chaperones and managing their performance. And that’s just if they turn up. Models can become unwell and cancel. They can also get offered a better job elsewhere and pull out from the shoot, it’s rare but does happen. So make sure you or your agency have a backup plan. It’s important to cover the worst-case scenarios, but not to dwell on them. Too much worry and negativity will kill creativity, and we don’t like that. Just ask the basic questions, what happens if the photographer doesn’t turn up,? The key model pulls out the day before the shoot, what’s the plan? Or in the very extreme case, the photographer is car-jacked (yep, over-the-top I know) on the way home with all the kit in it. How are the images backed up, how many back-ups are there and how many times during the day are these done? These are all quite extreme, but these questions have to be asked for reassurance and to minimise risk.
It Doesn’t Have To Cost The Earth
What do you want to achieve? This is always the first question we ask when it comes to photography. There are many ways to achieve image production. We’ve produced many lower-budget shoots in a controlled studio space, and by using the imagination and skillset of excellent creative team of sharp minds, you can achieve most things. There are many ways to achieve a successful photoshoot ranging across all sized budgets.