A Fun Way to Get Photos of Team Members & Facilities for Marketing Purposes
Does this sound familiar?
- Management wants a fresh marketing campaign. Or a website update. (Works the same either way.)
- Said campaign will need photos of either certain team members (like a regional sales lead), photos of a facility, or both.
- You, as a marketer, check the asset library and don't find any such photos. So you ask the team members. Hey, please take a few photos of yourself, or ask a colleague to do it. It takes five minutes.
- Then one of two things happens.
- They ignore you.
- They send you garbage-quality photos, forcing you to request more. THEN they ignore you.
So now you're stuck.
Management's irritated things aren't moving. You're irritated you can't get the photos. Team members are irritated they have to do anything.
Just about everyone who's ever worked in or near marketing has had this struggle. I've experienced it so many times I lost count.
Naturally, one has to find alternative courses of action. Many exist, with varying degrees of success.
Stock photos. Bad-quality photo cleanup. Campaign redesigns to reduce photo needs.
There's one option however which I not only find pretty enjoyable, but it's surprisingly good at getting better (and more frequent) photos from people. It's easy to do, relies on simple human psychology, and you'll even get a chuckle out of it.
Tastefully Embarrassing Team Members for Fun & Profit
IF you get bad quality photos - Run with them.
Put them directly into the campaign comps. Make zero corrections. Show them exactly as you got them, warts and all.
OR
IF you get no photos at all - Get some of the cheesiest stock photos you can and use those...alongside the actual team members' names.
Be as silly as possible here. If Team Member A is known for being tall and serious, use a photo of a short circus clown. Someone puts effort into their appearance normally? Use a photo of a muddy elephant.
The idea in both cases is the same. Show management YOUR progress, and highlight where the stall is, by "featuring" an embarrassing portrayal of team members.
"This is SO embarrassing!" Photo courtesy of DidYouKnowFacts.com.
Objections and Why They Fail
"Won't this approach make them angry?" Oh, this might make team members angry. Nobody likes being embarrassed. But here's the thing. If they won't participate, then how is that your fault? It's not.
Either uncooperative team members weren't told to cooperate (which is Management's fault), or they were told & just don't want to (which is THEIR fault).
They're angry? Good. You haven't asked them for something they can't provide. If they're concerned about privacy, that's fine - furnish a different photo, or suggest someone else on the team.
"Won't they refuse to work with you in the future?" Oh, they might try. But this is where your alerting Management comes in. By showing Management the campaign "results" first, Management knows where the stall is - and it's not you. Keeping lines of communication going, and encouraging/requiring cooperation among team members IS Management's job.
"Can't you just tell Management that Team Member A's not cooperating?" It has been my (long) experience that doing this first (ahead of 'Tasteful Embarrassment') works about 10% of the time. Go ahead and try it, of course, but don't be surprised if team members ignore Management as much as they do you.
Why? Why do they do that? (Here's where the reasoning behind all of this becomes clear.)
Because there's nothing really on the line for those team members. Yes, technically, Management 'requires' them to cooperate, but this isn't some crucial customer job. It's marketing. It's not 'necessary' to many people. So they won't do anything for it.
Unless the alternative is someone broadcasting their lack of cooperation with an embarrassing portrayal...
Tasteful Embarrassment Works, and Lasts
It's a bit of sneaky psychology. But you know what? It works. My success rate doing this crests over 50% on average. All of a sudden people - perhaps begrudgingly, but still - provide good-quality photos when asked.
It even has staying power. Just in May I went back to a client for new images, as the company had moved locations and a few of the team had left. Amazingly, my photo request got results within 24 hours, and with accurate, high-quality photos to boot!
They seemed quite eager to provide current photos. Or maybe they wanted to avoid looking like 1960s cartoon characters.
Being a content admin, I don't work much with images outside of positioning. To my mind they are great for emphasizing a point or lending visual credence to a marketing action. That's about all. (Plus I'm terrible at photo editing.)
So when I request images from a client, I want it to go fast & smooth. I do take pains to emphasize this early in the working relationship. It's just that a lot of the time, the teams need a little reminder. And what's more, ahem, "engaging" than some tasteful embarrassment?