New paths for media licensing: In-Image Ads

Last Updated on 13. April 2016 by PantherMedia

In recent years the publishing industry has undergone significant change, image prices have been in free fall and a new breed of publishers and bloggers uses free photo platforms, grabs images from Google or gets by completely without images. But where many only see dangers we have identified a new opportunity.

Inspired by that we have set ourselves the following aggressive goals: 

• Increase revenue for artists in spite of falling licence fees

• Win clients over with a better and more attractive offer than the competition's

• Maintain our commitment to quality related to content curation, service and legal issues

• Open up new target groups that currently use free images, grab them from the web or work without pictures

Reaching these goals is not possible for any stock photo agency using current approaches and concepts. So we took a step back, turned everything on it's head, just as we did 12 years ago when we founded PantherMedia, and came up with: PantherAds!

The basic principle is very simple: Instead of a download the customer get's a code snippet. We use this to stream the image into the customer's website and use space on the image for advertsing. In return the customer gets a license to use the image for free on his website. The advertiser gains much higher attention and advertising effectiveness by advertising on the image directly and pays by ad impressions or clicks. The revenue is shared between ourselves, the photographer and the customer.  A fair and transparent renumeration of the usage for all parties. In a nutshell: It's Win Win all around. Everyone in the chain benefits.

To mention but a few of the advantages:

For publishers:

• Additional advertsing income without the need for finding extra space

• Ideal advertising format for mobile devices

• Higher CPM compared to standard banners

• While being more relevant such advertising is less intrusive

• Save the licensing fee

For advertisers:

• Extremely good targeting due to context analysis

• Better response rates through display within visual content

• Higher CTRs and better branding effects

• Overcome banner blindness

• New opportunities for interaction and engagement

For artists:

• Fair, usage dependent renumeration

• High participation on strongly frequented pages: 1.000 ad-serves can potentially deliver more income than a web download

• Make money from new target groups that wouldn't normally buy images

• Tight control over the use of the images as they are only streamed and stay on the servers of PantherMedia

We have spent significant time developing the concept and technology for this initiative. At this time our new service is at the beta test stage. We will deploy it in our own photo community and display in-image ads on the photos there. In the very near future we will launch this service on a global basis and aim to become the world's first stock photography agency with In-Image Advertising. 

Your participation in the ad revenue will be in accodance with same royalties rates as for your other licensing revenue (30%-50% of the net sales of PantherMedia). Thanks to this initiative we hope to be able to augment licensing revenues through the advertising industry directly. This allows us to enter a market that is 100 times larger than the stock photography industry. 

You can find further details about In-Image-Advertising at www.pantherads.com. Should you operate a website of your own we would be delighted if you would take on the role of a "publisher" for our beta test.  You can register to become a beta tester on the PantherAds website.

We look forwards to forging ahead into the future with you. 

Very best wishes,

Robert Walters & Tomas Speight