The ultimate electronic promotional products?

Electronic Promotional Products

Getty Images is leveraging the power of promotional products in an electronic format. For years Getty Images has been faced with the reality that protecting the images is a costly and often fruitless effort. But now they have figured out a way to leverage peoples desire to have their images for free and still benefit.

Getty removed the watermarks and created a basic embed code that brands every image with the Getty Images name, and links back to the Getty Images website. This is “old” technology, used in internet advertising for years now. But, the application solve a very basic problem.

This is Brilliant, if not overdue.

Treating the images as promotional products, branding them with the Getty name and allowing people to use them in their blogs and social media hits some of the basic tenants of promotional product marketing.

The product has value to the recipient

The logo makes a clear association to the brand

The product is used in the relevant environment / way related to the brand

Getty has taken some of the sting out of the piracy issue. Certainly folks will continue to pinch images without using the embed code. But, a relatively small percentage needs to start using it in order for the impact of the branded items to start spreading.

The coolest part of this promotional item is how easily it can be replicated. With hard goods, there can only be as many branded items as you produce. With the electronic version, people can share, replicate, keep and create their own. This is an exceptional combination of old school promotional marketing and viral marketing.