Hold Your Horses!!!

Here's the situation. Ad agency client calls me for one of their clients to do a photo shoot of a new type of outdoor light bulb for a very large non profit campus. The light bulb is produced my in international company we will call "Stan" for now. Since this is a pilot project they want to use this shoot as a springboard. They also made the campus pay for all the bulbs so there was no freebies from Stan.


I price out the photo shoot so the ad agency, state agency, and the campus can use the photos. I ask Stan what their use will be with the photos so I can price accordingly. For 2 months and as meeting progress providing my professional opinion on exact timing of the lighting with the governor, Stan has still not provided info and the day before the shoot I am told that I can not be added to Stan's preferred vendor list.

I tell the ad agency that Stan will get none of the photos and they are fine with that and understand. I do the shoot and Stan asks for photos, I ask them again for their usage ideas but get no answer.

I deliver photos on a disc with my disclaimer that Stan get's no photos and the ad agency tells me that Stan wants some of the photos and they are more than happy to pay half of the fee that the ad agency is paying me.

I said absolutely not and told them that until Stan gives me their info on what they are going to use them for they get nothing, then I will adjust the bill accordingly. I told the Ad agency that as a last resort I will triple my bill then make Stan pay 2/3 of the amount.

I was just a little pissed that Stan's marketing person is trying to pull a fast one.

What's your opinion?
Thanks

Sounds like you have it right I would stand firm and be as cooperative (or uncooperative) as they are.

As long as you hold the copyright to your images, you're in the driver's seat on this one.

tell 'Stan' you want to pull some images off their website, but you don't want to tell them why you want them. Think they'd be agreeable to that?

Just don't turn this into a situation where you lose a return client. You have to weigh the cost of losing the client vs. getting more money for the license terms. If the photos don’t really hold a future value for you then maybe just come up with a reasonable price and offer it up rather than try and squeeze the job for every penny its worth.

Register the images.
Register the images.
Register the images.

And don't forget to...
register the images.

WillMass wrote in post #6605073
Register the images.
Register the images.
Register the images.

And don't forget to...
register the images.

WILL DO!!

I don't understand why you are talking to the advertising agency's client at all.

Normally in a situation like this you would be talking with the agency... and most agencies would never reuse a supplier who back-doored them and talked directly to the client.

I'd put the questions to the agency and leave it up to them to get the answers. You cannot provide final quote or billing, or the final/high resolution images, until you know full details of usage. The agency gets info from their client, or they don't. They probably have full working knowledge of ad buys, campaign duration, print runs, etc. anyway. IN most cases, the agency would have more knowledge of these details than most clients would.

If, in the end, they use the images in ways other than agreed upon and paid for, then you have a big, gnarly case against them.

amfoto1 wrote in post #6609362
I don't understand why you are talking to the advertising agency's client at all.

Normally in a situation like this you would be talking with the agency... and most agencies would never reuse a supplier who back-doored them and talked directly to the client.

I'd put the questions to the agency and leave it up to them to get the answers. You cannot provide final quote or billing, or the final/high resolution images, until you know full details of usage. The agency gets info from their client, or they don't. They probably have full working knowledge of ad buys, campaign duration, print runs, etc. anyway. IN most cases, the agency would have more knowledge of these details than most clients would.

If, in the end, they use the images in ways other than agreed upon and paid for, then you have a big, gnarly case against them.

I didn't back door them, the agency came to me with this. As long as I get my fee I don't care what they charge the client. But in this circumstance the secondary client is looking for a freebie, but not on my dime. The guy at the agency is a straight shooter.