Case study

What we did for iStockphoto

1,700 competition entries, 26,000 unique site visits, one winner…the

Britain

iS Campaign for iStockphoto

Client: iStockphoto, the world's leading online stock photography agency

Objective: To significantly raise its profile in the UK and drive traffic to istockphoto.com

Solution: an iStock-branded photography competition in partnership with The Guardian newspaper and guardian.co.uk and celebrating the UK's talent and creativity in the 21^st Century. The Britain iS Campaign for iStockphoto fulfilled the client's objectives and demonstrated that Britain's got talent.

Over the past 10 years, iStockphoto has quietly established itself as the world's leading online microstock photo agency – although their name is best known in North America. They approached Tannissan Mae to help raise their profile in the UK – to strengthen the brand and make it into as much of a household name here as it is in the US and Canada. iStock wanted to introduce itself both to new contributors for the growing photography database, and to new customers who would purchase images. The company needed to demonstrate they could offer compelling localised content which was relevant and current to a British audience.

Tannissan Mae determined that an iStock-branded photography competition would create the right kind of buzz, and invited Britons to enter their own photos of subject matter that would illustrate the UK’s talent and creativity in the 21^st century. Photographic imagery is not only iStock’s main sales driver, but also a medium with which a wide range of users could engage. We felt a contest would entice the creative public to get involved with the iStock experience.

Tan Mae was confident this would be the best way to achieve the client's key aims:

Introducing the microstock model to a broader base of users who are less familiar with its opportunities, but who would stand to benefit the most.
Encouraging a new wave of contributors to enhance iStock’s offering in the UK.
Demonstrating the strength of the British photographic community, which is already providing a vibrant localised offering to iStock customers.

We felt The Guardian would be the vehicle best-positioned to help us reach the audience we had in mind – creative amateurs and professionals who already know iStock, and those who needed to be introduced. Our research indicated that creatives were more likely to read The Guardian, and particularly to engage with the newspaper online, which is where we planned to hold the competition. A hugely successful campaign saw over 1,700 images submitted to the Britain iS microsite on the Guardian’s website, over the four weeks of the competition.

More than 26,000 unique users visited the Britain iS site over the course of the competition, spending an average of four minutes each engaging directly with the iStock brand. Our targeted print ads - in sections such as Media Guardian - reached the Guardian’s full print readership of over 300,000. We supported the campaign with a dedicated Twitter feed, attracting hundreds of followers. We also used the Guardian’s own highly popular twitter feeds to promote the competition to over a million of their followers.

In addition to this direct contact, we reached an even wider audience with press coverage across the following key creative and photographic titles:

Photoshop Daily, Photopro, Professional Photographer, Creative Review, Photography Monthly, Creative Boom, iPhoto, Photographyblog, Fotoshoota, Photography News, Photography Magazine, Photography Zone, Digiaddicts and Whosphoto.com

This combined campaign activity across mainstream and trade media in print and online, plus social media, achieved an increase of 2000% in visits to the iStock website from users based in London over the course of the competition.

iStockphoto has now tasked Tannissan Mae with helping build its profile in France. Watch this space!