Be careful using stock photos for testimonials

A common practice in direct marketing is using a customer photo to go along with testimonials. The trouble is, companies may not have actual customer photos to go along with those testimonials.

One solution has been to use stock photos of people to represent the customer.

And if you’ve spent any time looking at direct marketing (print or online) over the years, it’s likely you’ve run across a few faces used with different names and different products.

But over time, I’ve seen a change in the way stock photo sites deal with this. Some hadn’t specifically mentioned using photos of people in testimonials. But I’m finding that rare to non-existent these days.

Take a look at the prohibited uses from one popular stock photo site. Prohibited uses include:

• Use that depicts personal endorsement by model
• Use that depicts model in a sensitive way i.e. mental or physical health issues, substance abuse, criminal behavior, sexual activity or preference without a disclaimer.

Those two points are almost the norm for stock photo sites today.

I’m not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), but because I like my clients to stay out of legal hot water, I’m up-front with them about this issue.

However, as you may have noticed in the second point above about the disclaimer, there may be some wiggle room. In fact, one stock photo site I talked with suggested sending a mock-up of any design so they could take a look at it and help determine if the usage had crossed the line.

Being that all my design time is spent in the direct market/response world, I know how important a photo can be with a testimonial.

For that reason, I suggest my clients do one of two things:

1. Get a customer photo at the time you’re getting the testimonial. With webcams and cameras built into phones, taking a picture of yourself is easier than ever. Plus, you’re getting a more realistic photo than you get with stock photography where every attempt is made to make the photo look as professional as possible.
2. If stock photography is your only option, check in with the stock photo site and give them a mock-up of how the photos will be used. If they OK it, great. If not, ditch the photos and move on. It’s not worth the potential legal hassle.

If testimonial photos are really important to your campaign, then I believe you have to treat the gathering of actual customer photos as seriously as you treat the copy and design.

Just my 2-cents.