Who the hell ARE these people?

Maybe you can help me. I really want to know:
Who the hell are these people?

Who are these young, happy, pretty, multi-cultural people with great teeth and even better hair who hang out with notebook computers in sleek and modern conference rooms on B2B company Web sites all over the world?

Who are these international inhabitants of virtual corporate locales?

The reason I ask is because I've personally been inside hundreds and hundreds of B2B company offices in over 20 countries and have spent time in probably a thousand conference rooms over a 25-year career. Yet I have never seen these people who seem to inhabit a weird virtual world of corporate Web sites at organizations across the globe.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with stock images used in a clever way. In fact I use frequently use images from Shutterstock on this blog. I use stock images in presentations and I use stock images in my ebooks. It's not the photos. It’s the ways they are used.

Visual gobbledygook

The problem with the B2B happy multi-cultural conference room with computer shot is that it has become a cliché. It is world-class, cutting-edge, mission-critical visual gobbledygook. Just like written gobbledygook, this kind of image is so overused to have become meaningless.

These models don't look like you. They don't look like your employees. And they don't look like your customers (unless you run a modeling agency).

Because these models don’t look like you or your customers, it is insulting and demeaning to everyone (your employees and customers especially) to use these shots on your homepage and throughout your site.

Who is pimping your company?

Its sort of fun when I spot the same pretty model on two different sites. I've found one particular photo at use at multiple companies, including one of the biggest and most famous technology companies in the world. Is that really what you want? Some model representing your valuable brand? Really?

Use real people instead

Why not just use real people on your site? How innovative! Use real employees in a real conference room to represent your employees in a conference room! Damn. Why didn't we think of that? And use your real customers too.

Last week I presented at a meeting of executives at Jackson Healthcare. I went into my rant of stock photography (in this case happy multi-cultural models posing as healthcare workers). I popped up a screenshot of the Jackson Healthcare homepage with a model pretending to be a doctor.

Then a remarkable thing happened. Just a few minutes later, the CEO of the company, Rick Jackson, raised his hand in the middle of my presentation to say they had swapped out the pretend doctor for a real one!

Wow. That was fast. And the actual doctor has a wonderful story too.

The baby being held in the picture is the child of a woman having surgery on the JH medical brigade in Honduras in 2008.

The story with Dr. Eustis was that he brought a teenager from Honduras to the US to take care of him and provide needed care for his leg in order for him to live. He did surgery on his leg in Honduras on the JH medical brigade, but wasn’t able to give him the proper care he needed there.

Now, isn’t that a heck of a lot better than a model dressing up like a doctor?

Just say NO to pretty models

Let me say again that stock images are great. I use them all the time. I'm not saying that you shouldn’t use stock images.

However, I am saying you must re-think using models to represent your employees and your customers. Lose the visual gobbledygook.

Credits
Top photo: Shutterstock / Sean Prior
Second photo: Shutterstock / Andresr

Comments

[Gisela Hippolt-Squair]

The downside of using real employees is you have to update the photos when those employees leave the company.

A few years ago, we spent a lot of money on a new booth with pictures of employees. Soon after one of them quit. Everyone commented on how "she" didn't work for us anymore.

We've used stock people ever since.

[twitter.com/Jericles]

David,

Excellent post as always. Stock photos (and clipart for that matter) are very useful for creating story boards. At least I have found them to be.

But brands (personal or corporate) have to start asking themselves, "What is the value of X?" before using anything digitally these days.

I think that's something that is getting lost in alt the great technology that is out there now. People want to jump in on th latest "tool" that comes along, or if your corp. they just know that they want/need to be online or in social media. But they never ask themselves what is the value to performing those actions.

For a corporation there is no value in putting out a model-laden stock photo as visual representation of your brand. No one can get a sense of what a particular company does, what it's culture is like, etc. if you're using images of people that don't work at the corp, don't look like most of the people at the corp, and are generically sitting around a conference table doing pretty much nothing but smiling and looking pretty for the camera (which if you're a model is your job).

I'm joining the bandwagon. Down with stock photos as brand images!

[Carolyn Winter]

David you put your finger on one of the most annoying things for me on the internet. I believe that behind every web page there is a real person, someone who in the creation of that page wanted to connect with me. Thats why I landed on that page.

So I am always baffled, why I can't get a real name, email, phone number, even an address that says this person, product or service is more than an illusion. Unconsciously, I know that the model is a model, that there's a guy's voice in the text beside a model who is female. It provides a disconnect. The product has to be super amazing to get me to go the next click to purchase. I have only done that once and in hindsight it was because of the raves of everyone else in a forum that I bought into and purchased the product, absent of a real seller persona.

Think I will go and do a picture review of my own sites! LOL

Carolyn

[Doug Haslam]

David,

Great point-- I hate stock photography, especially when it makes us all look like we want to be from Stepford. I understand the need for business sites to look polished and professional, but they need to be "real" first.

That said, "real" has a lot of definitions. The doctor example is literal. I think there are ways to use evocative images to prove points as well- I do that a lot on my personal blog (though often without the polish I mention above).

[twitter.com/WritersKitchen]

First of all, I agree. If I see one more multicultural handshake with blurred burled wood and a Macbook keyboard in the background, I'm going to lose it...

But that said, I'm guilty. Somewhat. A current small biz website project includes a bunch of stock photos.

I was patting myself on the back because the images are a little different from the same old same old. We not only included more multicultural start-up business types, but also middle aged and older people. And they aren't stunningly beautiful.

Here's the thing: Many small or sole proprietor businesses don't have budgets to cover photo shoots--nor the skill to do it themselves.

Stock photos--we pay $1 per photo--are an affordable solution, albeit not ideal.

[Toni Anicic]

But David, if we put "ugly" (normal) people there, it will lover our conversion rate. I've seen researches, the world doesn't work that way.

Your customers want to believe you're perfect. They want to see these models. They don't wanna look at an average person because that would mean you're an average company. They want above average company, they want extremely good company.

Why do you think mainstream media has pushed beautiful people on the big screens? Because that's what audience demands.

[Eugenie Verney]

Yup, visual gobbledegook is about right.

It's lazy and it's becoming increasingly counter-productive because we all now recognise the formula as something ersatz and cliched.

There are issues with using real people instead - not least the fact that they move on (and I also have first-hand experience of this) - but that has to be a better starting point than the politically correct cardboard cut-outs from the agency!

[Brad]

Not sure I follow - should we stop seeing Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie movies and take a stand? Have you ever been to a corporate PR department at a large brand...I have noted that many pretty people (male and female) strangely land jobs in these departments. B2B tradeshow floors are also filled with pretty people. To say these don't exist is simply untrue.

[David Meerman Scott]

Some great comments here. Looks like lots of differing opinions. Great.

Brad - Brad and Angelina are real people. That's why the public is interested in them. So if your employees are pretty - by all means use them. I'm not talking about pretty vs. not. It's fake vs. real.

Toni - if pretty models increase conversion rates - go for it. Don't stop because of me.

My main point here is that people want to do business with people. We want to work with companies that have people who work there who understand us. Gobbledygook of all kinds -- visual and textual -- is not real communications and in my experience degrades the effectiveness of a site.

David

[Kyle]

About a year ago we shot our "About Us" video and we used as many internal staff members for the shoot as possible. About 90% of the shots of people in the video are employees here. The thinking was to use the actual people who work here to give some authenticity, but also to save money from costly stock footage.

I don't think people leaving a company really means anything. By using a real person, you're getting the message across. The stock model never worked for you anyway, so what's the difference?

[Andras]

David, fully agree, excellent post.

As soon as I see "obvious" stock photos of people on a website, I become highly sceptical about its honesty. There are actually two or three men and women whom I've seen all over the internet from Yahoo to e-commerce shops etc. - they seem to be more famous than Brad Pitt! :-)

[Rachel Bryant]

Great job once again David. I've heard your "rant" before and have taken it to heart here at Manatron. The people that work behind the scenes here to assist and take care of our customers may not be the "prettiest" individuals in the world, but they are the heart of our company - they are what makes us what we are.

We are currently in the process of a web refresh for Manatron.com and in the design, we plan to incorporate photographs of our ACTUAL customers. I believe the impact of this will be significant.

Thank you for your insights.

[Dan Hutson]

Hi David. Great post. I work for a nonprofit serving seniors, so you can imagine the conversations we have about stock vs. our "real" people. We still use stock, but I'm all for transitioning away as much as possible. I think the key is great photography; anyone can be visually interesting when you use a really good photographer.

[IPreferDiverse]

Personally, I'd rather see the multicultural stock photos then the "real" employees. Unfortunately, the real corporate America is still very homogeneous. It's nice to see people who look like me represented in these images, even if its not what the company really looks like. It makes me feel that the company is trying to market to all groups.

[Fergus]

In my last job I was with 2 clients (The director and his secretary) and we were discussing stock photography. It was also a classic case of applying mouth before brain, just sometimes stock photgraphy brings it out in you - well at least that is my excuse I am sticking with it. Conversation went a little like this;

Director, 'I like it, the image will work well for the HR page. She is a woman, she is Asian - brilliant.'
Secretary, 'Wow, you just so politically correct.'
Me, 'Just a shame she is not in a wheel chair...'

Thankfully they laughed and saw the funny side or I think I could well have lost the agency an client...

[Shashi Kapoor]

My god David, I had to comment. Stock images have been one of my most hated aspects of the web as we know it today.

You see them recycled time and time again. Irrelevant bright white toothed smiley customer care workers ready to take your call. Not disgruntled acne ridden underpaid teenagers who wish you would crawl under a rock and die.

Okay, not saying we should start putting the latter on there, but hey, stock images make websites feel impersonal, confuse branding and perceptions of the company.

Personally I feel that if you must have people on your website, using real people, (rather than stock models that you may later find advertising an anti syphillis campaign), is well worth the investment.

Some good photography can go a long way with helping people feel connected to your team. Putting a name to a face feels much more like a connection than looking at someone you know isn't real.

Congratulations on hitting the nail on the head.

[Kurt]

Great Article.
I was researching Auto Transport Company websites last weekend to get an idea for an upcoming project of mine and this same subject crossed my mind. Great timing by the way!

If there is the possibility that the user may be directed into believing that the subjects or people within an image are a representation of that company's employees or people, they absolutely should be genuine or real.
Stock images can create a negativity about the entire site when used inappropriately. I would much rather just see the text "Customer Service" and a phone number than wonder if the extremely good looking person in the impeccable office really works and answers the phone at Joe's Repair Shop.

Here is a link to Structure Marine's About Us webpage http://www.structurmarine.com/about.html
This is the way that images of people, departments, or employees should be used on a corporate website. In this case, simple black and white and I truly believe that these people work for Structure Marine.
If anyone knows a where I can see great use of stock images for a company's departments or services I would love to see it!

[Justin Kownacki]

Those images aren't about what the company *is*, but what the company needs other people to *think* it is.

Very few companies are as racially diverse, attractive or happy as the models in these photos. And while I personally am a big fan of reality, I'm also aware that most companies have no idea how to market themselves in the first place, much less how to make reality work for them.

Before we storm the stock photo vaults with our digital torches of purity, let's figure out how to help companies NOT be ashamed of what they actually *are*. Otherwise, we'll suddenly be thrusting a bunch of socially awkward, mediocre-looking people into the spotlight before they're ready to be seen, and you know what that means: lots of "About" pages filled with people's Mad Men avatars.

[Amber Weinberg]

LOL This made me laugh. I absolutely HATE stock photos on company sites..especially web design company sites....I've never met a geek that looks that good!

[Alice O'Brien]

It's not the stock photos that are the problem, as stated in the post, it's how we apply them. People photos are the MOST difficult to deal with. I prefer to use real people but then you have the headache and budget problem of keeping these up-to-date with staff turn-over.
The thing is one of the biggest differentiation points in B2B are the people doing the work. That's the main reason you should try to showcase the real employees. Putting a face to the voice or the name builds trust like nothing other than face-to-face can.

[Gary Slack]

David, no surprise to se the volume of commentary on this post. Visual gobbledygook (your wonderful term, not mine) offline and online has been a huge pet peeve of mine for years. When my agency helped eBay launch eBay Business, we used real people, and the credibility and extra impact were huge. At the same time, Goodby Silverstein, the consumer agency, was using actors to play consumers in eBay's print advertising, and they all looked like they were from San Francisco or Seattle. Another time, we were invited to Dell and asked to comment on their brand new small-business portal. Besides being stock images, all the photos said large enterprise; so did the copy. We're not perfect in this department, either. We've had to use stock for cost reasons when our instincts said no. Great to see you deploying your widening influence on this subject, a sore point for many!

[Sean Power]

David,

You may be surprised to see what kind of results one would get when A/B testing pictures of "real" people vs "stock" ones.

Then again, you may not be surprised. In the end, I'd argue that whatever works best for conversion is arguably what's best for the site.

Sometimes, it's a picture of a giant panda, not a bunch of people sitting around a boardroom, that yields the best results.

Go figure O_o

[David Meerman Scott]

Love the differing opinions. Many thanks to all of you for jumping in.

[Justin Locke]

well another justin mentioned this point but i will expound. sometimes it's not that models are more effective, it is the "corporate stage fright" that so many people and organizations suffer from. with all your competition looking like the cover of vogue, how do you dare let people see the real you? but i am with you, there is no substitute for the real thing (did i just say that??). when i made PR videos for hospitals i let the docs and ceo and patients tell the story without scripts, and it rang true to viewers, unlike the typical sanitized perfect ad that we have learned to ignore. the flaws make it distinctive and memorable.

[OlenaKoval]

David,
I worked for one publishing house in Ukraine, where were working a lot of young, happy and always smiling pesonnel :-)We even shoot them for covers of our news magazines (and these covers were selling issues quite good:)
I guess you are not against of models per se, but against the idea of using stock photos, where they are better not to be used. Everything is good in certain proportions. No one will put pictures of not photogenic
employees on their website or in their ad campaign. Why would they want to do that? Also some companies have issues with website/ ad campaign when the employee leaves and the picture stays...So Just say NO to pretty models does not really work. But I fully agree with you sometimes too much of smiling young faces annoys(not that I like exhausted and tired faces of old ladies..) But guys be reasonable.
It's like one and the same voiceover actor is used for Tide ads and for the ads of a bank.Different target audience- the same voice and the same intonations. And then you hear the ad and think "Ok again Tide, Glade, whatever is advertised...) But no, it was message from some bank, and I missed it. Because someone didn't do their homework and didn't check if this voice was used by some other brand in their ad campaign recently (or at the exact period of time you're planning to use it). And sometimes you notice that big brands do these mistakes. With their budgets and huge amount of counsultants, brand managers, ad agencies etc,etc...
So, before using any stock photo, any voiceover actor, any video, any model for shooting... just do the homework, check, if some other company used it in it's ad campaign, website, etc. not so long ago, and think how it may affect your brand and your ad campaign.