I remember long before stock image banks went digital, the process of selecting an image for a campaign was incredibly cumbersome.
I'll tell you what it was like.
From the mind of some bearded, alternative creative came an idea for a groundbreaking campaign.
To create the campaign (obviously) an image was needed that would summarise the essence of the idea.
Since there was no internet, we only had huge catalogues where, every year, the big banks published the available images.
And that was all.
If it wasn't in those catalogues, you could russian virtual mobile number either die of disgust or opt for another, even more archaic method: personally call the image bank so that, with a bit of luck, they would send you negatives of images that weren't in the official catalogues.
Yes, you read that right, this is what the process was like just 20 years ago.
Today, there are hundreds of thousands of good quality images with a completely different problem.
The challenge of our decade is not the quantity or quality of images available, but that they all look the same.
By abusing retouched and perfect images, advertising and visual content in general suffer from a lack of authenticity.
It's impossible not to see an image like the one in this Colgate ad and think that not even in a million years would we achieve a smile like that.
And it's not just a problem of a few decades of advertising.
Social media has shown us that there is a real, unglamorous world that we connect with instantly.
Because?
Because like all of us, reality is not perfect, nor does it have teeth that white!
Advertising example
In fact, in recent years, it has become increasingly common to see images of people who look real, with the same face that you and I might have when we wake up.
That’s why user-generated content is so valuable to brands of all sizes.
UGC helps them connect with people who are thirsty for authenticity and can identify with the brand's values.
In this global village in which we live, with a huge variety of races and identities, it is becoming increasingly complex to communicate through social networks for people from all over the world.