Hispanic Stock Imagery Market Simmers!

There’s no doubt about it, the Hispanic stock imagery market is red hot, and new entrants are jostling for elbow room as the field becomes increasingly crowded. Each passing week seems to bring with it a new player onto this competitive and hotly-contested turf.

Getty images, perhaps the most well-known stock imagery provider in the general market, has recently made overtures to the Hispanic market that shows it means business. In October the company announced a partnership with Hola Images, which specializes in Hispanic-relevant visual content, advertises “Content by Hispanics, with Hispanics in mind.” Hola Images President Lorena Maria Arnold stresses that Hola's imagery spans the spectrum of Latino experience from heavily Hispanic to fully-acculturated to depict the breadth and depth of the Latino experience.

Getty images also co-hosted “Creativisimo!” with AHAA this February, an event that focused on current trends and the future of Hispanic-relevant stock photography. Some of the topics discussed during the Creativisimo! discussion groups included: 

  
 The state of the industry — hot topics, trends and impending changes

 How imagery needs differ between U.S. Hispanic agencies and non-Hispanic agencies

 Recognizing intra-cultural diversity and inter-generational resonance.

Agencia Efe, the fourth largest wire service in the world, penned a deal last June with Index Stock that grants them access to Index Stock's complete photo archive of stock imagery. As Portada reported at the time, Efe had only just signed a deal with Zuma, another stock photography company, when the deal with Index Stock was finalized

Rafael Carranza, Efe's sub-director of North American sales, explained the rationale behind signing with two stock photo companies: “Zuma's stock photography is more specialized within the celebrity/entertainment realm, whereas Index Stock is a much more comprehensive database of many different types of photos,” said Carranza. He added, “We’re very excited about these new partnerships. We want our customers to have the best service in the market and these alliances help to realize that goal.”

In an effort to provide Hispanic advertisers, agencies and design firms with a wide range of stock photos “that reflect the true authenticity of the U.S. Hispanic experience,” long-time Hispanic advertising executive Guadalupe Marmolejo has announced the launch of Pozo Digital.

The company was created out of a perception that, currently, the market is dominated by a few large general market companies with limited Hispanic inventories. Ms. Marmolejo and her team are of the belief that they can deliver more relevant images to clients.

Among the website's notable features is a rights management tool that can restrict other advertisers' use of the image by certain criteria such as ad-category and medium. Another is that the user can switch from English to Spanish, or visa versa at any point in the browsing experience.

“One of the things that sets Pozo Digital apart from the competitors is the carefully vetted selection of photos we offer,” says Marmolejo, who has had over 17 years of end-user experience working with stock imagery. “In that time I've developed a keen sense of what imagery rings authentic with Hispanic audiences. Another thing that makes us different is our current undertaking to develop a vast array of vintage photography from Latin America.”

Another entrant into the market is Hispanicshots.com, which advertises itself as the source for inexpensive and conveniently accessed Latino stock photography. The website offers a variety of photos depicting Hispanic individuals, families, and couples in day-to-day activities. The photos are offered on a non-exclusive, royalty-free, one year basis.

While each of the aforementioned Hispanic imagery providers holds one thing in common – the subject matter – they differ in the options they offer regarding the purchase and use of the imagery. 

Hola! Images emphasizes the fact that their imagery is produced by Latino photographers, and that it is representative of the acculturation-related variation that exists within U.S. Hispanic communities.

Zuma’s photos, according to Efe’s Rafael Carranza, have an entertainment/celebrity interest focus, while Index Stock is a more comprehensive database of photos.

Pozo Digital chooses to highlight the handpicked-nature of the photos they offer, each one having been examined and approved by veteran ad executive Guadalupe Marmolejo.

While Ms. Marmolejo’s company offers photos that have been selected for their authenticity and may be purchased on an exclusive basis, Hispanicshots.com offers photos that are non-exclusive and available at cut-rate prices.

When choosing a stock-imagery company to partner with, perhaps the most important question to answer is what the priorities of the campaign are, and how a prospective imagery company’s offerings fit those priorities. In essence, the optimal stock imagery partner is determined by the purpose for which the imagery is intended.