The cost of producing imagery for your campaign
THE BIG PICTURE (or imagery, costing out imagery and client expectations)
All imagery costs money. It seems an obvious statement but often imagery is confused with artwork/design. From the full page campaign image to a pack shot or line illustration, a cost will be incurred. Below is the advice we give to our account teams to consider when managing client expectation of costs for producing that campaign image or the accent thumbnail in a Detail aid. All costs are very rough estimates from 2009/2010…
ILLUSTRATIONS
A simple line drawing can be done inhouse but takes longer than normal artwork. However anything more complicated needs to be commissioned. This will be an external cost. If not accounted for it will come out of the profit for the job.
A jobbing illustrator will charge about £300 per day (or £50 per image) for line work depending on the complexity of the image. A campaign image can run into thousands of pounds depending on the style and the artist.
Note: Many illustrators also charge usage fees for their work.
PACK SHOTS
We have a jobbing camera in the studio capable of simple pack shots for use at a fairly small size (ie won’t look good blown up on an exhibition panel). However we have no bespoke lighting or staging. This means every pack shot has to be cleaned up and photomontaged. Therefore a simple pack shot can take 3 hours. Ideally budget and time should be put aside to have these shots done properly. There are specific pack shot companies that charge about £100 for a basic pack shot.
PHOTOGRAPHY
At the concept stage many images and styles will be explored. Just researching and then formatting these images can take days (and that’s before showing the client the chosen concepts). At a pitch level these costs for development will be clawed back in the creative fee if we are successful. A separate cost for the final image will need to be communicated to the client based on the chosen concept and the intended usage.
It is impractical to cost out every image presented at concept stage. This is because usage /territory/final requirement will have huge affects on costs. It would also take many man hours for someone to negotiate/collate these costs.
If the client has a small budget we need to know up front. It’s no good asking for a ‘creative’ image that’s ‘original’, impactful, distinctive yadda, yadda if there is no budget. At the brief there should be an allocation for imagery.
Here are some rules of thumb:
Royalty free (RF) imagery
Royalty free imagery on average costs £400 per A4 image (though prices range from £25 to over £1000). Even if we own the royalty free image we need to charge for it. Nothing is free. To find imagery (even royalty -free imagery) takes time – which costs money.
Royalty-free imagery is royalty-free because it tends to be the stuff that doesn’t sell as well as Rights Managed images. So if you want to go down that route it will limit options – ie the client can’t be as selective or prescriptive.
We have a huge resource of royalty free images available to us but we must not get into the habit of thinking these are free. We have paid for them and it takes time (read money) to research and utilise them. Every image must be charged for. If the RF image is then used in a photomontage or is manipulated those costs need to be considered.
Rights Managed (RM) Imagery.
Here you are charged per usage, per territory, per license and per the popularity of the photographer/image. If you want exclusive rights that will need to be negotiated separately. We can often negotiate discounts for images purchased from photolibraries, depending on the popularity of the image/photographer.
Here is an example of the difference in cost, just by changing territories (click on image):
Just changing the regions of use affects the cost by hundreds (or even thousands) of pounds. Changes to duration of use, electronic distribution, period of use, print run will all affect the cost. Also this is just for a brochure. Adverts, exhibition panels etc, etc all need to be costed out. As you can see without the full usage the numbers are meaningless.
An all advertising pack for the image above (ie any use you want – in pharmaceuticals) for one years use in the UK will cost you £8455. (The most expensive RM image we have ever used was well over £15k – without exclusive rights…).
If you want exclusive rights in the UK for one year of this image it’s even more. Where possible and time permitting we would always recommend a photoshoot.
PHOTO SHOOT
A photoshoot can be as simple as a glorified pack shot to a full campaign image. Photographers can be hired from £600 a day to ‘blow me that’s expensive’. We have various jobbing photographers we use on a regular basis but sometimes the concept will need a specialist. However the basics are the same.
The cost of the image needs to cover:
The commercial value (if a core image – this image will represent the brand and is high value)
The studio time (location time)
Location costs
The art directors time
Model costs (and any support people)
Processing (digital files need to be made fit for purpose)
Post photography manipulation
Many specialist photographers will also charge for usage (ie we don’t get to keep the image unless we pay a further premium).
Costing a complicated image out can take days even weeks. All that time has to be recouped. Again to try and cost imagery out at concept stage is impractical and costly.
PHOTO MANIPULATION
We have some photomanipulation skills in house but even if we manipulate the image – there is a commercial value for that work.
The external cost to recolour a digital image will cost between £200 – £400 for a simple piece of manipulation. Daily rate £700.
More extensive work can go through the roof (we were quoted £50 000 to produce the image of the cow at the start of this article).
IMAGERY SUMMARY
Ball park figures for imagery are below -these are average costs and will vary hugely depending on final image, usage and timings. These are costs to us and will need to be marked up to cover the inevitable organisation and management of seeing the process through. Just remember to inform the client that these costs will be finalised on final requirement and quantities.
Illustration
Jobbing illustrator £300 pounds a day or £50 per line work illustration.
Full page Illustration £1500
Specialist/popular illustration £3000+ plus usage costs.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Pack shot
£100 a pack (basic)
PHOTOGRAPHY: Royalty Free image
£400 (A4 300dpi – ie suitable for print on an A4 page)
PHOTOGRAPHY: Rights managed (rough guide only based on image of nurse above)
All advertising collateral (UK non-exclusive/ one year) £8500
Journal Ad UK 1 year circulation 10 000 x 4 insertions £1500
Detail Aid low print run UK one year £1600
Leave piece UK 1 year 10 000 print run £2090
Exhibition panel UK 1 months duration £450
PHOTO SHOOT
Jobbing photographer £600 per day
Model cost (very variable) £600 per day
Art direction £700 per day
Location costs (variable but for example Hatfield College:) £1000 per day
Location travel and sustenance costs extra
Post production (ie processing, selection and making print ready) £100 per hour
Plus any props…
Photomanipulation (basic) £700 per day
Hi-end manipulation with creating image from scratch from £2000 per day
Remember – some images are created using ALL of the above. If an image is a montage of say 5 Rights Managed images those prices will be five times higher (though the libraries will discount such usage).
Finally it can take literally hours to find the right image – hours which will appear on the timesheet against the job number.
Take home message: IMAGERY COSTS – CREATING IMAGERY COSTS – RESEARCHING IMAGERY COSTS.
So as you can see imagery can become very expensive very quickly. There are of course other pitfalls to be aware of when commissioning imagery ie, illustration is subjective and needs to be carefully managed. Often you’ll get a scamp first, make sure everything you expect to see on the final image is covered off here – it’s a costly exercise to change details of the image after the artist has finished.
I’ll cover more on how to commission illustration in a later post. If you want more details feel free to contact us at:
Posted on:
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010, at 9:25 am.
Categories: News