# Pricing for a Huge Advertising Campaign



## rnrproductions (Jan 7, 2012)

Hi guys! New here. Just something I need to figure out and pretty soon, might I add. 

I've been approached by a huge vehicle company that wants to use a photograph of mine for a one year campaign. Campaign will cover magazine, newspaper, POP, OOH, alternative media, internet and events. 

It sounds enormous and I'm not sure how to price this correctly. The advertising will cover my image and then the vehicle image so it is the primary image for the campaign. It will be covered nationally.

I currently have my own photography business, we've been running it for about two years now so I would consider myself professional now. I have not been approached about anything to this scale as of yet. I did have an image featured in a Subaru tradeshow campaign a few years back but that only went for about 2 secs in a commercial and back then, I didn't have my business.

- Should I be charged royalties? 
- Should I charge for the period of time they wish to use the photograph?
- Should I charge per media campaign rather than as a whole?


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## etnad0 (Jan 7, 2012)

Chances are you're not going to get a royalty, but it won't hurt to try. They are also likely to want to negotiate you down. If they are going to do a major ad campaign with your images for a year, I'd start at $60k personally, depending on what you're willing to accept. If they counter, you should have a price you are comfortable getting. For example, if you are OK with getting paid $10k you should say $20k in case they want to counter. If they don't counter, you make an extra $10k. Those are just examples, but $60k is chump change to a major car company. They'll make that back in a day or less.

I went with $60k because it comes out to $5k per month and I'm assuming they would pay close to that for a professional session meant for advertising. I could be wrong because I'm not a pro photographer, but it seems reasonable to me.


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## Rephargotohp (Jan 7, 2012)

Something like this may be worth theinvestment for you

fotoQuote, fotoBiz, and the fotoKeyword Harvester


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## brush (Jan 7, 2012)

have you compared what prices are going for from stock houses like Getty? That might be a good starting point. I'm a designer for a major cable network & when we need stock photos for a cross platform campaign like this I can tell you we shy away from anything over 2k a month, but we don't have the deep pockets of the auto industry. Start with Getty though, pick a rights managed image, the royalty free ones are TONS cheaper, and price it out as if it were going to be used the same way the car company wants to use yours. They ask how many eyes will see it, how long it'll run, what media it'll be used for, what industry it'll be promoting, etc. And I wouldn't be surprised if the car companies buyer has no interest in paying you the kind of money they pay Getty for an image. They may want to go with RF licensing in perpetuity and offer you a whole lot less than a rights managed photo would see. In the end you'll need to charge whatever you think is fair but that's at least a place to start.

FWIW, I just grabbed a car photo off gettyimages.com and pulled pricing for it. With no discounts (I'm SURE they have an account at Getty to get these images for at least 20-30% off, you're looking at $18K to use Image#107770650 on all advertising formats with no exclusivity for 1 year in the US only promoting the automotive industry. Somethin' tells me 60 grand would be a bit ambitious.


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## c.cloudwalker (Jan 7, 2012)

Car photography is a big chunk of my business. However, I am not in Australia, have never sold anything there and have no idea what the Australian money is worth... so it would be very foolish of me to try and tell you what to charge. Don't you belong to a pro association that can help you with that?

One thing to keep in mind is that they are buying a stock image, kind of. The photo was not shot for them and it will be reflected in the price you charge.

Another thing is, who are you? By that I mean, are you well known? If yes, are you well known in the car photo business or are you a wedding photog who happens to have a photo of their car that they like? This is part of how high you can go. If you are a small town wedding photog who happens to have a photo they like, you need to seriously ask yourself how good and unique and whatever else this photo is. If they are interested in yours because they think they can get it for $5,000, they are not going to pay $60,000. No matter what.

Yet another aspect, that you don't mention, I think, is what kind of use are they asking for: exclusive or not? Exclusive is more expensive.

A whole lot of things to think about while working out your fee. I agree with etnad0 that you need to ask for more than you want so that you can back down a bit and give them a deal. However, it helps a whole lot to have a very good idea of what they are really willing to pay.

Now, if you are not in that business (car photo) maybe you have no one to ask. But the first thing I do when I get a call from a potential client is call others in my business to see who the potential client has been talking to (there is only a few of us here) and from talking to each other we usually can figure out what the client really wants, what his budget is, etc, etc and then we most often decide who is going to get the contract or we decide some of us are going to fight each others for it.

All that to say, it would be very difficult to give you a price. I don't even know if we have any pro photogs here on the forum who are from Australia. And Australia is where you want to get your info.


Also, last but not least, if we are talking about major money (and I think we should be,) make sure and have a specialized lawyer helping you out with this.


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## tirediron (Jan 7, 2012)

c.cloudwalker said:


> ...if we are talking about major money (and I think we should be,) make sure and have a specialized lawyer helping you out with this.


And that ladies and gentlemen, is the key phrase in this entire thread!


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## KmH (Jan 7, 2012)

+27 on the "have a specialized lawyer helping you out with this."

In that type of situation commercial photographers often charge a % of all the different media buys.

A key pricing factor is if they want exclusive use or not.

You may find some helpful info at www.asmp.org but that is info geared to the US.


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## rnrproductions (Jan 7, 2012)

brush said:


> have you compared what prices are going for from stock houses like Getty? That might be a good starting point. I'm a designer for a major cable network & when we need stock photos for a cross platform campaign like this I can tell you we shy away from anything over 2k a month, but we don't have the deep pockets of the auto industry. Start with Getty though, pick a rights managed image, the royalty free ones are TONS cheaper, and price it out as if it were going to be used the same way the car company wants to use yours. They ask how many eyes will see it, how long it'll run, what media it'll be used for, what industry it'll be promoting, etc. And I wouldn't be surprised if the car companies buyer has no interest in paying you the kind of money they pay Getty for an image. They may want to go with RF licensing in perpetuity and offer you a whole lot less than a rights managed photo would see. In the end you'll need to charge whatever you think is fair but that's at least a place to start.
> 
> FWIW, I just grabbed a car photo off gettyimages.com and pulled pricing for it. With no discounts (I'm SURE they have an account at Getty to get these images for at least 20-30% off, you're looking at $18K to use Image#107770650 on all advertising formats with no exclusivity for 1 year in the US only promoting the automotive industry. Somethin' tells me 60 grand would be a bit ambitious.



Thank you! I was looking through istockphoto and getty to get an idea, but I think it's a lot more to do with me feeling confident enough to demand my worth. I'll jump in and see what they negotiate after. I'll hear back next week.


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