PR photography is a vital part of business marketing, and I’ve often been called to attend events, big and small, to create PR photos for businesses to use.
When I was starting out, this usually amounted to a cheque presentation (and that still happens today), but increasingly firms are getting more imaginative with their marketing and PR. I also work for a wide mix of big and small companies, and a larger budget can often mean the ability to do something more eye catching.
A case in point was this pop up event put on by Money Supermarket late last year, promoting the publication of their Household Money Index, a guide showing where you could be making savings to your domestic expenditure.
Which is what took me to a pop up tent, recreating a domestic household, on Deansgate in central Manchester on a wet October afternoon. Games, puzzles, give-aways, and plenty of purple were all in evidence, helping to get people to think about what electric appliances cost the most to run, and giving them pause for thought on how they could reduce their bills.
My brief, of course, was to show that the event was a success. So, I took photos of people engaged in conversation with staff, taking part in the activities, and generally enjoying themselves. I also included shots of the pop up, partly to get plenty of photos of the branding, but also as a record of what had been created – both the physical building and the games and literature that was being deployed. In other words, I wanted to create a record of every aspect of the event.
Why? Well, while the primary reason to take photos like this is to give a client marketable images for sending out with press releases, and for putting out on social media to show what took place, it’s also good to create an archive for a client of what they’ve done. As every good busines knows, PR and marketing is an ongoing concern, so it’s good to have a record of past activities, to inform future ones.
