No Budget

Rant:

Dear Marketing Department,

Some of you guys are super talented.  I would like to invite you to quit your job and come to my restaurant everyday for all meals, take pictures, Instastories and snapchat  in order to get awareness of my place, hence bring in paying clients.

I will not pay you for feeding you, but thanks for all that promotion.  I do want to ask though, you may be well fed, but say you heard that non sense for every job would you be able to pay your rent, kids tuition, bills or God forbid have some fun and go to the movies OR EVEN TRAVEL.

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I am part of a pretty big photography community and the one thing that is constantly discussed is how so many brands/companies/bloggers expect photographers to be paid “in kind” to essentially produce content that is intended to be used to generate SALES.

Let me break down a business for you -

  1. YOU SELL A PRODUCT OR SERVICE -THATS CALLED REVENUE

  2. YOU SUBTRACT THE COST OF THAT REVENUE - yo marketing people your salaries you get every month are a COST

  3. YOU ALLOCATE BUDGETS TO R&D, MARKETING, PR etc etc

  4. AFTER TAKING THAT AND A BUNCH OF TAXES OUT YOU MAKE A PROFIT (or a loss)

So, when I hear a fellow artist telling me a reputable hotel chain is asking for content to be made on a LARGE SCALE in order for them to ULTIMATELY MAKE MONEY FROM THAT PROMOTION, how in the world do you not PAY that person who is generating that revenue for you.

“I rather work for free than for cheap” - @creationsofLA

Of course, if you are starting out or in some cases it may be worth working for free because it may lead to something. But you must be smart about this and eventually get yourself to a stage where working for free is a no no.  Else get a normal job, maybe in a marketing department, and enjoy photography as a hobby.  

I am sure things are way better in the western world, but boy do these markets (GCC) need to fix the way they think. Don’t even get me started on agencies, but let me summarize anyways:

There are 1000s of you in this country, 99% of you are not creative, 99% of you depend on the artist to really generate the ideas, 99% of you pay super late, 99% of you TRY NOT TO PAY US by offering that phone your client threw your way while you bank the huge amount of money paid to your agency.

GOOD NIGHT.

Blogaltamash