Is Your Marketing a Stock Photo Cliché?

Stock photography is often a reasonably priced way to add images to your marketing communications. However there’s a falseness to the images. The models look a little too happy.

Have you heard of Women Laughing Alone With Salad? It is a blog devoted to many stock photographs of women laughing and eating salad. Why? Because this is a common stock photo, used all too often.

Your brand should not be represented by clichés. Do have the skills to edit a stock image, so that it resonates with your target audience and clearly conveys your message? A good graphic designer can take several images and combine them into one image that has a new meaning. In this cover for MidwestHeart shown below, I used a stock photo of an electrical current and another of the back of a man’s head and combined them to convey the impact of a stroke.

If you must use a stock photo, Hubspot has some good tips. Better yet, if the budget allows, work with a photographer or illustrator to create a custom image that will represent your brand, and ONLY your brand. You don’t want to see the same images you have used in your competitor’s marketing.