The Year in Review – Advertising

If 2020 and 2021 were “out-of-the-ordinary” years because of a virus called COVID, 2022 was out of the ordinary because the improbable began to happen. Advertising began to revisit its traditional forms. Candide McDonald investigates.

The CMO Survey early in the year indicated that 2022 budgets would be spent 56% in online channels and 44% offline. Television and radio captured some of that nearly 50-50 split. Out-of-home (OOH) advertising grew for an obvious reason; people were out and about again, and they did it with gusto. Interest in print and press advertising showed some growth after years of decline, perhaps because the digital world has become overloaded. Brands need to stand out. The shift, though, has been subtle. Social media advertising still dominates and the pool of physical magazines and papers has declined since world’s “great culling”. Maybe though, it’s the start of something bigger?

Traditional print advertising photographers like John Huet have hardly noticed the change. “Advertising was starting to change before the pandemic. I come from the world where advertising was a double-page spread in a glossy magazine. That’s what you always hoped for. That doesn’t exist anymore,” he says. “Shoots slowly came back this year after lockdowns, but it all came back in a different way, a different pace, and a different style. I can’t remember when I last did an ad in a magazine. I used to do a ton of work for ESPN magazine. I would do editorial work for them and then have four or five pages of ad work.” ESPN magazine, like so many once popular print publications, exists no longer.

Diverse or dying

This doesn’t mean that Huet has had a quiet year. Far from it. “I’ve never been strictly an advertising photographer, although it is what I am probably best known for. I’ve been very diverse for more than 25 years. My income streams come from advertising work, directing commercials, editorial, selling fine art prints, and I also do pro bono work,” he explains. He has shot the last eleven Olympics, so February was spent shooting in Beijing. He also tends to shoot the stills for the commercials he directs, “because I find that I treat myself better on set than other directors treat photographers. I give myself a little extra time to get the shot,” he adds.

One of Huet’s biggest, and highest profile, advertising jobs this year was shot in 2008 and underlines one of the trends he has observed in advertising photography this year – image reuse and image libraries. Netflix and the International Olympic Committee produced a documentary called The Redeem Team, that launched on 7 October, executive produced by Olympians Dwayne Johnson and LeBron James. It is the story of the US Olympic Men’s Basketball Teams’ quest to reclaim Gold in 2008 after a shocking performance in Athens. Huet’s stills were used in the advertising campaign promoting the series. He says it is common now to be asked to shoot a library of stills for a brand to be used for various purposes. This links to the second trend he has noticed. “Clients have a lot more say and there is a lot more directing client work, without an agency. I just shot for an athletic shoe company. The in-house creative lead was from a traditional advertising agency, but had moved across. It used to be just the collateral and catalogue imagery that was shot without an agency, but now it’s more the main work they will use because it ends up on social media. They don’t necessarily need a full-blown shoot with all the bells and whistles when it’s [only] going to be seen on a phone screen,” he notes.

Integrated is everything

Gavin McLeod, chief creative officer of Australian agency CHEP Network, hasn’t observed a significant comeback in print advertising in Australia per se either, but it has benefited from a change in ad campaign make-up. He explains, “The use of advertising photography has been evolving over the past few years. In fact, it’s fundamentally changed. Storytelling has evolved across mediums, and, with it, our ideas and the way we produce them are becoming more integrated by nature – from a single shoot we often require assets for film, OOH, social, owned channels, and earned, to name a few.” Parallel with this, he adds, is the request for photographers to go beyond the still image and capture content such as cinemagraphs or six-second clips as part of their brief, with photographers adapting their skillsets to match new needs. He has also noticed some brands valuing the power of strong photography in the right medium. “Fashion and lifestyle brands are absolutely leading that charge. We’ve continued to use photography across our campaigns – in some instances as a core part of the storytelling or exploration of our ideas, and in other instances to play a supporting role across integrated campaigns,” McLeod says.

McLeod cites two examples. The first is Michael Hill – Bridal, with photographer Derek Henderson. “This was an opportunity for us to truly let photography tell a story as part of a broader, integrated campaign. We led with a film and photography that celebrated the true love story of Sir Michael and Lady Christine Hill that has always been deeply woven into the fabric of the Michael Hill brand, and then brought its range of bridal jewellery to life in product-focused fashion photography to continue repositioning the brand as a premium jeweller. His second example is Karicare Toddler – Feed the Real, which aimed to bring real, rather than idealised, parenting back to the fore. “This idea really had photography at its core. It drove a range of assets and outcomes across paid, owned, and earned,” he notes. “We enlisted the original baby influencer, iconic Australian photographer, Anne Geddes, to reimagine her photography style. Instead of imagery of perfectly calm and peaceful children that was behind Anne’s rise to fame, the campaign showcases children at their messy, honest, and chaotic best – throwing tantrums, ‘rearranging’ the set, and more – all against Anne’s iconic, ethereal style.”

Norwegian photographer Erik Almas works in the US. He calls this multi-media or 360-degree campaign approach “the snowballing trend of asset capture,” and he also felt it was strong in 2022. “From being a classic advertising photographer crafting one or two campaign images a day, I now create a ‘basket’ of images and footage. It’s the brand imagery and film driving the production, but on the heels of this we also capture secondary images, library images, B-roll, and aerial footage.” The trend has already given him a remarkable two years. He achieved record revenue in 2021, and 2022, he adds, was strong. “With the economy still on a tear, we were off to a really busy start. I saw a pause in the estimate requests with recession fears and large companies announcing spending freezes in late summer. As of September this year, we are back to a normal volume of estimate requests coming in and we are looking to have another really solid year.”

Australian photographer Simon Lekias found that advertising work vastly outstripped editorial for the first time this year. “After the lockdown of 2021, where production pretty much slowed down to a trickle, things kicked off pretty quickly around February of this year. I work mainly in the fashion editorial and fashion advertising space, so the sheer volume of content clients required after the lockdowns was huge. Before I could blink it was August and I was back up to 2018 numbers where shooting days are concerned. It was definitely game-on during 2022.”

Sarah Adamson’s 2022 was a year of change. “I signed with Photoplay, had a kid, and started getting more work as a film director, so the flow of life this year has been dramatically different to those before. It’s hard for me to attribute the moving parts of that to any specific thing,” she says. As well as dramatically different, her year has been dramatically busy work-wise, she adds, with work that has been much more varied. “The general vibe of working this year has been extremely positive and uplifting. People seem happy to be back on set with fewer disruptions and seem to be working with a new appreciation for what it is we do. A lot of my peers and I have been able to use COVID as an opportunity to refresh our work-life balance and reflect on our priorities in general. I have found that that has resulted in a newfound joy on set and a feeling that being able to create things with one another is not something to be taken for granted.”

After the false starts of the two years before, this year felt like a genuine one, she notes. “It really does feel as though normality is being restored. For real though, not just in a way where the creative conversations feel obligated to comment on what we’ve all been through the last few years as if willing it to be behind us. There is less talk about things returning to normal and more things that are just returning to normal.” The work she has done this year has been more wide-ranging and eclectic than it ever has been, she adds. “I couldn’t say I have identified a specific stylistic trend going around, yet people seem to be really connecting with the uplifting, energetic, and positive aesthetic I have always strived to achieve in my work. Natural human interactions are no longer a scary thing and advertising art seems to be reflecting the lives we are all getting back to.”

Trends old and new

The COVID years have had a lasting effect on photography shoots though, Lekias says. One of the trends that has persisted is remote shoots via streaming platforms. “Even taking into account the relaxing of travel restrictions, clients are less likely to travel in for shoots as much as they used to. Some of my clients who are interstate or overseas are happy to have the shoot streaming these days.” The “equality movement” has also created an advertising trend, he adds. “Stylistically speaking, we are moving toward a much more inclusive and diverse social representation in ads. It was pleasing to see clients take a more progressive approach to their imagery and brand strategies overall.”

Australian photographer Chris Budgeon hasn’t observed major trends, he says, apart from the continued growth of stills shot with parallel TVC productions. He has, though, noted a number of small changes. “Clients seemed more determined than ever to have talent in shoots, project highly positive expressions (read: smiles) even when the subject matter didn’t call for it,” he says, “and there seemed to be a lot of ‘origin’ story briefs that tried to create a history (real or imagined) about company founders, almost like the origin stories in movie franchises. Agency clients also seemed to be pushing for emotive story lines over humour-based visuals, and to create more reality, more lifestyle situations involving real people as talent and real locations.”

Budgeon specialises in talent-based work as well as still life, which was a good place to be this year. His work, he says, ended up “everywhere” – outdoor, print, socials, and digital, mostly for Australia and New Zealand. “We also shot two campaigns this year that were destined for the global market and won’t be seen locally,” he adds.

For Gavin McLeod, the most salient trend has been that a lot of work that was previously primarily static, like OOH, became digital. “We’re needing to apply motion to what was previously a canvas for still imagery, and I believe we’re going to continue seeing advertising photography evolve as the motion requirements continue to grow across channels. I’m excited to see how advertising photographers adapt and develop new techniques that bring their imagery to life,” he adds.

The clock is ticking

As countries emerged one by one out of COVID’s restrictions this year, brands rushed in to capture the new mood of freedom and to manufacture one of joy. There was a surge in advertising. While this meant an increase in commissions, it also meant an increase in pressure. Like many photographers, Lekias felt the pressure. “This year, to be honest, the biggest challenge has been time,” he says. “It’s been very busy and with the seasons now broken up into hemispheres, rather than traditional summer and winter campaigns, it’s non-stop in the global marketplace. Where we would usually have a few quiet months, things have changed. It’s literally all year round now which makes managing time tricky.”

For Adamson, the greatest challenge has been finding the balance between photography, film directing, and “mumming”. “It's been full on. The pre-production process of film directing is far more hands-on and protracted than the photography process, and in a lot of cases I have been responsible for both the stills and motion assets of campaigns.”

McLeod says that working with advertising photographers is never challenging. “Quite the opposite,” he adds. “Although I do think it’s challenging for us all to work in the new world of advertising. Due to the way we’re producing integrated campaigns, photographers don’t often get the space and time they previously had to do their work. They’re having to fit in between film shoots, having to work with pre-set lighting and a range of other challenges,” he notes. “Equally, there can be so much going on and being captured during a shoot that from an agency and client side it’s difficult to give the photography your full attention as you’re trying to manage capturing a range of outputs at any given time. It’s something for us all to be mindful of and to continue to work together to ensure we’re delivering the best outcomes.”

Advertising photographers have fared better than their editorial counterparts when it comes to income. Adamson has done a few fashion and editorial gigs, but otherwise the jobs she has been getting through Photoplay have been enough for her not to worry, she says. “I don't take anything for granted. I missed working when we were all in lockdown and am happy to be out the other side now with new opportunities and a little bug on my hip.” Lekias feels the same satisfaction with the year that was. “Generally speaking, budgets have definitely shrunk post-COVID, however the sheer volume of work has increased. The numbers for this year are looking pretty good, but more importantly the quality of work has been inspiring,” he says. Budgeon is also a fan of 2022. “Ad work absolutely paid the bills this year and accounted for virtually all my income.”

Finally, Almas sums up the year with a credo for those that will follow. “The greatest challenge is always to create good work on demand. Advertising photography is a gift in that you get to step out of your own head and collaborate with great creatives at the agency you are working with. With this privilege however comes the expectation, and pressure, to outperform their ideas and to outperform the work I have created in the past. This makes for a creative burden which I never take lightly.”

Contacts

Sarah Adamson – www.sarahadamson.co

Erik Almås – www.erikalmas.com

Chris Budgeon – www.chrisbudgeon.com

John Huet – www.johnhuet.com

Simon Lekias – www.simonlekias.com

Gavin McLeod – www.chepnetwork.com

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