Advertising CEO Meltdown

It seems everyone is enjoying how Peter Arnell was tasked with rebranding Tropicana Orange Juice and came up with packaging that consumers hated so Tropicana killed it after potentially spending 35 million dollars on the effort (here). This is only the latest in what will surely be many public beatings for companies that spend money on stuff that doesn’t work and the snake oil salesmen who convince them to do so.

I’m a little conflicted about the whole deal because it signals a return to zero risk at a time when most companies need heaping dumpster loads of risk to discover new ways of doing things. On the other hand you can’t buy this level of brand awareness with 35 million dollars so maybe the effort really did pay off in the end for a company willing to take a huge risk and attempt a makeover but then when the people tell you they don’t like it one bit scrap the whole deal. That’s pretty effing risky.

The most painful part of the whole ordeal is this leaked video where you can watch the jazz hands routine of Mr. Arnell hisself as he blows an enormous column of smoke up the Tropicana/Pepsi executives asses while explaining how they arrived at the packaging. Some of you know that convincing people why one thing is better than another takes more than just saying it and you really need a little bit of smoke and mirrors to get the job done but this one seems to be all smoke and mirrors.

Here’s a couple choice quotes:

“Historically we always showed the outside of the orange. What was fascinating was that we had never shown the product called the juice.”

“We engineered this interesting little squeeze cap here (which you guys can come up and see after) so that the notion of squeezing the orange was implied ergonomically every day when you actually went to the actual carton. The skin of the orange is replicated on the cap, and tooled in to the cap. The idea, of course, is to have a consistency between the purity of the juice (which is coming directly from the orange), the cap (which you squeeze every day), and, of course, the carton.”

And the video:

It appears that Peter Arnell is the king of advertising hyperbole. Here’s more.

Secret Hopes Of Becoming An Artbro Star

Changing my life plans from wanting to be a teacher with the secret hopes of becoming an artbro star to really wanting to become a teacher and participating in creating art as a side hobby whenever I feel like it. My new ideas on how I’ll be distributing my work will make “living off my art” and continuing my chic bohemian lifestyle an unrealistic feat.

I’ve been feeling a lil down about how disconnected art is from actual change in other people’s lives. Not wanting to pursue being an art star takes some really great burdens off me…

via Brad Troemel.

Pictures Of The Year International- Magazine Photographer Of The Year

POYi Announced their Magazine Photographer of the year on Friday. You can see the other winners (here) and still more to come as the finish the judging process. You can actually watch and hear the judging live (link on the front page) which is an education in itself.

First Place goes to Uriel Sinai of Getty Images
Singles
“Cyclone Narcisse in Burma”
“Congo Unrest”
“Gaza Israel Conflict in 2008”
“War in Georgia”
“Post-Election Violence in Kenya”

Second Place goes to Anthony Suau of Freelance / TIME Magazine
Singles
“U.S. Economy in Crisis”
“U.S. / Mexican Border”
“Culiacan – Mexican Drug War”
“Untitled”

Third Place goes to David Burnett of Contact Press Images

Images Currently Being Posted 3/2
Singles
“2008 Beijing Olympics”
“Las Vegas Boom and Bust”
“Hillary Clinton for President”
“Senator John McCain, Republican Presidential Candidate”
“Barack Obama”

Janet Froelich Leaves NY Times Magazine for Real Simple

This is a big deal (just a rumor right now).
John Korpics made a similar move back in 2005 when he left an award winning run at Esquire for In Style. Not sure if we need to start rumors about the Times Magazine being in trouble because she’s likely just burnt and ready make some serious cash.

Artists Making Money

The only difference between artists making money and artists not making money is that the first group is better at business.

Do you want to know why there are so many crappy films in the world? Because there are so many great networkers who want to direct.

via Brazen Careerist

Shepard Fairey and Mannie Garcia on NPR’s Fresh Air

Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air asks Shepard Fairey about the the Mannie Garcia photo and the lawsuit then she talks to Mannie about it and finally she talks to a law professor about fair use. You can listen to it (here).

I pulled a few relevant passages out of the transcript for you here.

–How did Shepard Fairey decide what image to use as the basis for his poster?

Mr. FAIREY: Well, I looked through a lot of photographs, but I had an initial concept that I’d like to divide Obama’s face in highlighting shadow between tones of blue and red. So, it was really the direction of the gaze which I felt looked presidential, looked like Obama had some vision and some leadership, and that combined with the way that the light was falling.

–Why did he decide to sue the AP?

Mr. FAIREY: Well, the AP was threatening to sue me, and they first contacted me and said, you know, let’s figure out how to work this out amicably, which I was vey open to and said, you know, I’m glad to pay the original license fee for the image. For all the reasons I’ve already given you, I didn’t think that I needed to, but I’m glad to do it because, you know, I’d rather just make this easy for everyone.

And then they said no, we want damages. And then they ran a piece in the National Press basically saying I stole the photo, which as an artist that works from references frequently, you know, I feel that they’re calling into question the validity of my method of working as well as the hundredsif not thousands of other artists that made grassroots images for Obama working in a similar way, or people that made things, you know, against the Bush agenda that had a likeness of him. These are all things that were created by people who probably don’t have the resources to license an image.

And the meaning of their art pieces is completely different than the original intention of the source image and adds a new layer, a new value. It’s transformative, and I think it should be fair use. And I felt that I needed to fight the AP not for myself only, but for a whole group of artists that would be self-censored, probably, because they can’t afford the photos and they don’t want to be in a legal entanglement over using those types of images to communicate a message.

–What was Mannie’s reaction when he found out the image was his?

Mr. GARCIA: Initially when I found out, I was disappointed in the fact that, you know, someone had – was able to go onto the Internet and take something that doesn’t belong to them and then use it. I think that that part of this whole story is crucial for people to understand that simply because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s free for the taking, and just because you can take it, doesn’t mean it belongs to you.

–Mannie also talked about his dispute with the AP over who owns the copyright. I haven’t heard or seen the AP produce the contract or agreement with Mannie that says they own it so I assume they can’t find it or there’s problems with it.

–And finally Terry talks with a law professor about fair use.

Professor GREG LASTOWKA (Rutgers School of Law-Camden; Visiting Professor, Columbia University): One thing that’s really important about fair use, they need to understand, is the Supreme Court has said that each fair use case needs to be decided individually, and there are no bright-line rules. And that’s one of the things that’s most frustrating about fair use because if you look at these four factors for fair use, none of them are strictly controlling, and you can find a case that has, you know, one of these factors going one way or the other and a finding of fair use or no fair use.

–Terry asks him about the recent Facebook uproar.

Prof. LASTOWKA: I see it as very relevant because I think the reaction of the public to something like, you know, Facebook’s changing the terms of service, the fear that someone else is going to be able to monetized the creative work that you’re uploading to Facebook shows that we all feel like we are authors and proprietors of the content that we create. So, yeah, I think it’s very relevant because it shows the public’s reaction when their own authorial interests are at stake.

Young Photographers Just Don’t Have A Chance Right Now

A reader sent me this:

“I’d like to thank you for the Simon Norfolk article that you brought to our attention recently, and your thoughts on him saying that all of us will soon become amateur photographers with other professions. This really hit home for me. In 2007, I graduated from a photography school with very high hopes. The following year, I moved to New York City, and I worked as a photo assistant sparingly, because the pros there weren’t getting enough new work to hire me as often or their current assistants (which they had for years), weren’t moving on to work on their own like they typically would. Towards, the end of ’08, after running out of money and feeling defeated, I moved back home. Earlier this year, I enrolled in school to get a Masters degree in Accountancy.”

“As disappointed as I am, I feel this is the only way to go to have any kind of success for myself in the future. I hope that I can go back to photography in the future once I get my finances together. I understand how the economy may not affect the industry’s best photographers, and they probably won’t have to take such drastic actions, but it’s just really unfortunate that a young photographer such as myself, and my 12 other classmates from photo school, never really had a chance to establish ourselves in the field that we truly love.”

The industry is shrinking right now so getting in on the ground floor has got to be nearly impossible. The pros fight over the scraps now. Is there a path anymore where you can grow and make mistakes and still make a living? I know there’s a strong future for photography but it’s not going to happen until the economy starts growing again. My advice isn’t necessarily to go find a different profession but to find a way to work on your craft and be poised for the comeback. Easy for me to say…

Jimmy Fallon On Twitter: I’ve worked with him before. Talented dude. Jake Chessum.

Off to do a photo shoot. It will be of me “fake” working on a computer at a diner. Test show tonight – so I’d rather really be working ah.. 7:28 AM Feb 17th from Tweetie

@jimmyfallon It’s just like when I go work out and then eat a whole box of mac and cheese. Also, is the shoot w/ entertainment weekly? 7:40 AM Feb 17th from web in reply to jimmyfallon

@hchermak yeah. This photographer is good. I’ve worked with him before. Talented dude. Jake Chessum. 8:02 AM Feb 17th from Tweetie in reply to hchermak

http://twitter.com/jimmyfallon

Media Is Thriving, Media Owners… Not So Much

“For all the apocalyptic news about newspapers, there’s a distinction worth making: Newspaper owners are far more endangered than the medium itself.”

via MediaWorks.

It’s important to realize that media is booming right now. What’s broken is the system where crusty old men take the piles of cash they already had and make more piles from printing and distributing media. Of course part of the fallout here is that most of the media that’s being made right now doesn’t make any money. That will change. Nobody said reinventing the wheel would be easy.

Aric Mayer has a good recap of the publishing crisis (here) where you can clearly see how the decision publishers made to put all their eggs in the advertising basket is now going to cost them dearly. After all those years of watering down their product to attract a more general audience, lowering the subscription rate to boost numbers and producing pathetic advertiser friendly content it seems that most magazines not only no longer have loyal readers but now the advertisers are gone too.

If that’s not enough, in what amounts to a perfect storm for publishing all these laid off editors, writers and photographers will be creating original content with their free time:
Web-only news sites started by recently unemployed journalists– Media Shift

The tide will be turning quickly for small, independent, efficient content producers. The first bit of good news comes from Advertising Age (here):

“In the past several months, there has been increasing evidence that the most easily measured metric on the web, the click, is not the right metric to use for many advertisers. And that’s good news for publishers struggling to monetize their content with online ads.”

With the news that San Francisco will soon be without a major daily newspaper (here) some see a smoldering crater, I see thousands of tiny saplings starting to take root.

Getty Bullies Photographers After Buying Agency

In this example Getty buys Mediavast (Wireimage) where photographers have a 50/50 royalty split more or less and after several months realizes that’s not their standard split and that they’ve been “overpaying” all this time. The solution of course is to charge them 80/20 until you recoup your money and then apply the standard 60/40 (as far as I can tell because these agency terms are not easy to interpret). I love how they say “If you prefer to pay off the overpayment in a lump sum” …cause we know how you can’t wait to pay us back.

Dear Contributor,

Our internal audits and reviews recently identified an error in how we calculated the royalty rates and home territories used in reporting and paying your Getty Images royalties, since our acquisition of Media Vast.

As a result of this error you were overpaid royalties on previous statements. To correct this situation we will begin deducting the amount due as a result of the overpayment, from your January 2009 royalties, at 20% of the royalties due to you for that month, and from future royalties, until the overpaid amount is fully recouped.

Section 1 – Corrections

Our system reverses (reporting a negative amount in parentheses) all transactions prior to January 2009 that have been reported and paid at an incorrect royalty rate on previous royalty statements.  Each transaction is then re-reported on this statement as a positive amount at the corrected royalty rate.  Since the total for the negative transactions is higher than the royalty rate for the positive transactions, the result is a negative balance, or the amount we have overpaid.

Section 2 – Jan 2009 Royalties

January 2009 royalty transactions are reported in this section and separated into US and Non-US sales and totaled.

Earnings Summary

A summary is provided at the end of the statement to show that 20% of your royalties (total of section 2) are being applied to the corrections (total of section 1).  The remaining overpaid balance will be added to your next royalty statement as an advance and 20% of royalties will be applied to reducing the balance each month until it is zero.  The remaining 50% of the royalties will be paid to you according to the normal royalty payment schedule.

If you prefer to pay off the overpayment in a lump sum or at a higher monthly percentage, we are happy to accommodate you.

If you have any questions, please contact royalty.questions@gettyimages.com

With apologies for this inconvenience,

[redacted]

Email 2:

Hi all,

Thank you all for your understanding in the matter.  There was a lot of deliberation among [redacted] at what a fair recoup amount would be.

Granted this was not easy news to give and likewise for you to receive.  It is our hope that 20% is fair and won’t be felt negatively in your monthly earnings.

There was a typo in yesterday’s communication in the below paragraph.

Earnings Summary

A summary is provided at the end of the statement to show that 20% of your royalties (total of section 2) are being applied to the corrections (total of section 1).  The remaining overpaid balance will be added to your next royalty statement as an advance and 20% of royalties will be applied to reducing the balance each month until it is zero.  The remaining 80% of the royalties will be paid to you according to the normal royalty payment schedule.

Best regards,

[redacted]

Getty Uses A Nefarious Tactic To Raise Rates

In this letter to a photographer Getty claims the 50% split was a typo and should have been 60/40 in favor of Getty [correction] claims the 60/40 split in favor of the photographer should have been 50/50 and justifies taking the extra 10% due to a typo. Seems like a slimy tactic to me.

getty_letter

Friday Link Love

Palm Springs Photo Festival has a free photo contest (here). [Your work will be seen by thousands of retirees! Kidding, important people will be in attendance.]

PhotoShelter has an image buyers survey with lots of powerful information (here). [Is it me or do the image buyers–PE’s included–sound like a bunch of whiners… don’t make us do this, don’t make us do that, we’re busy, we have no time… do you want cheese with that?]

Facebook does an about face on their TOS changes (here). [Imagine how long that would have taken if we needed newspapers to react to this shit.]

Photographer Zack Arias spills his guts in this video (here). [Who knew Avedon sucked at one time ; )]

Five Papers named the world’s best designed (here). Money Quote: The rising trend of strong photography in the 1980s and 1990s seems now a distant memory. Often, photo departments and staff shooters are the first to go during management cutbacks. Yet, as the global culture becomes more visual, newspapers must keep pace, even lead. Publishers must recognize that the core value of their product is good journalism — the integration of writing, photography, graphics and design. [So you’re saying publishers should pull their heads out of their asses? At this point they need to just cut a window in their stomach.]- [Whatever you do don’t watch the video they made you’ll want to claw your eyes out part way in… stick to making newspapers people!]

The HCB (Henri Cartier-Bresson) Award is a prize to stimulate a photographer’s creativity by offering the opportunity to carry out a project that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.It is intended for a photographer who have already completed a significant body of work, a talented photographer in the emerging phase of his or her career, with an approach close to that of reportage. The prize is of 30 000 Euros and is awarded every other year (here). [You are sooooo dreaming… but click anyway.]

Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Photoshop via the Adobe blog (here).