Velobici’s Modernist Thermal campaign was shot in Cornwall. Image: Chris Puttnam
When was the last time you flicked through a magazine or scrolled a website and paused to read anything that wasn’t accompanied by an image? If you did, I would wager it was a tiny piece, maybe a sentence. A filler.
You probably don’t remember what that sentence was about, or the brand, if any, it promoted.
The human mind is tuned to recognise images. It processes the information contained within them with incredible speed and accuracy. This is an evolutionary instinct from our days as hunter gatherers, searching for food. Words on the other hand, are cutting edge technology from the perspective of the human mind, and some of us still don’t know how to read.
So when it comes to getting your brand message across, the image is king. It is therefore astonishing that so many brands still fail to appreciate the value of an image when it comes to transmitting a message. In the era of ecommerce, when so many customers are to be reached online, desperate to spend their money, the lack of quality images can cost sales.
Images when engaged in public relations are no less important. Many would argue they are more so, when you consider an image in a publication could be an individual’s introduction to a brand.
Yet time and again, brands fail to grasp this. Press releases are distributed with low-res or poorly shot images. On one occasion recently we heard of a brand that thought it could distribute a release announcing a new product with nothing more than a CAD to support it visually.
“Journalists are time poor and inundated with press approaches. They do not have time to request images”
Journalists are time poor and inundated with press approaches. They do not have time to request images from brands, and often their deadlines will not allow it. Failure to distribute a press release without a bank of accompanying images will more often than not result in failure of the campaign.
One glossy magazine journalist we spoke to rejects more than 50 press approaches per day on the basis of poor images. Without even looking at the release.
The solution to this is obvious. With every press release you send, or ask your PR company to send, ensure it is accompanied by a bulging media kit. In this kit should be a selection of images for every eventuality; location shots, product shots on white backgrounds, mannequin or model shots, and of course everything in a decent resolution and with the option of both landscape or portrtait. For multimedia, add a short video.
Don’t cut corners by providing shots used elsewhere on your ecommerce site because the journalist isn’t in the business of providing you with an advert. They need exclusive images, produced at the shooting stage which will not appear commercially. The same goes for video. In other words, if you are using an image on your site, you shouldn’t consider it worthy of distribution to the media.
Brand owners will balk at this additional layer of faff, but the bottom line is, that if the necessary images aren’t available, the campaign isn’t ready. Launching without them is premature and will result in diluted impact.
It is an unfortunate fact that many campaigns are launched with few or no image assets. In the rush to make an announcement, the long, drawn-out process of collating images is considered too costly and time consuming. The result, time and time again is the failure of the campaign. At best it is received by the media with a slow clap, at worst a shrug.
To make matters worse, even the inclusion of a comprehensive media kit won’t guarantee you coverage. That decision ultimately rests with the editor.
But by taking the time to provide everything a journalist needs, you are increasing your chances of coverage and potentially placing yourself ahead of the competition.
And in this cut throat fight for media attention, you need every trick in the box.