The need for stock footage has always helped clients with big ideas and smallish budgets do more with less. "I never talk about stock as an alternative to production," says Rick Wysocki, senior VP/motion brands and products, at the NewYork office of gettyone. "The role of stock footage is to help people realize bigger creative ideas than their budget allows. For a commercial trying to depict the world-wide frenzy of business, it may not be possible to travel all over the world and capture all the cities you want. Creatives should be able to get most of those icons from us."
Nonetheless, getting such imagery has always been a time-consuming search. In the bad old days, when a client wanted to find out what a stock house had available, he would need to have it verbally described to him by a company representative, then have a tape of the material shipped over. After reviewing the tape, he might find what he was looking for, or he might have to ask the stock house to send over more images. "That could be a two- to five-day process," recalls George Bartko, senior VP/operations of FootageNow. (FootageNow is headquartered in Atlanta, with offices in New York, Los Angeles and Stuttgart, Germany.) "It was very slow."
"It’s a well-shared opinion that the stock footage market hasn’t grown rapidly because in the past it has been difficult to access stock footage," agrees Rob Sherman, president/COO of Busybox.com, a Center City, Calif.-based e-commerce company that offers a royalty-free stock footage library. "You couldn’t see it; you’d have to have it described to you, and then you’d have to wait for a videotape to be provided. It was all very frustrating."
If recent trends continue, however, such methodology may become as antiquated as the rotary telephone or the black-and-white television set. When Ogilvy & Mather, New York, produced "Olympic Moments"aa multimedia presentation appearing for Kodak in New York’s Times Squareathe creatives looked on the Web at the "Millennium Collection," from gettyone/Image Bank Films, New York, available for viewing at www.imagebank.com. They chose clips from the site, and a tape of material was sent over to the agency the same day.
And there’s more to come. As the Internet becomes an integral part of business for agencies, production companies, and suppliers, stock footage houses are increasing their presence online. Stock shops are merging and expanding, and all are offering slightly different variations on the same idea: Give the client more variety as quickly and easily as possible.
"The importance of the Internet to advertisers is in the immediacy it offers," explains Bartko. "Whether you are trying to decide what footage is out there, or whether you’re just brainstorming for ideas, you don’t have to wait or guess. You have quicker access to ideas and can decide what you want to purchase immediately."
"The Internet is important for all communications," Sherman concurs. "Stock footage is one of the tools of communications professionals. The Internet provides the most rapid means to find and buy stock footage; it increases speed. The Internet makes it a case of instant gratification."
