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20 min

Unlock the Secrets of Visual Storytelling with Insight from Getty Images

Mark and Sammy Malave Jr., Manager of Creative Insights at Getty Images, explore how visuals can transform travel marketing. Discover how Getty Image’s VisualGPS informs creative decisions with data, learn about common image licensing challenges, and understand why authenticity matters. This episode is packed with actionable advice for marketers, content creators, and creatives alike.

"Brands that really look to us to be a visual partner and a visual strategic partner, we help kind of inform them on how to make the best visual choices with those insights, with insights that we know are unique, that are really going to push visuals forward and really help our clients make better visual choices."

[00:01.640] - Intro/Outro

This is Brand USA Talks Travel, elevating the conversation about international travel to the United States. Here's your host, Mark Lapidus.

 

[00:09.190] - Mark Lapidus

At Brand USA, we have over 600,000 images in our digital asset management system, and yet we still find the need to license photos. Does that surprise you?

 

[00:18.540] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Not at all, not at all.

 

[00:20.250] - Mark Lapidus

I bet you it's pretty common.

 

[00:22.190] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Very, very.

 

[00:23.150] - Mark Lapidus

My guest today is Sammy... Say your last name for me. I don't know how to pronounce your last name.

 

[00:27.430] - Sammy Malave Jr.

All good. It is Malave.

 

[00:28.980] - Mark Lapidus

Malave. I would have butchered that for sure. My guest today is Sammy Malave Jr., Manager for Creative Insights at Getty Images. Before this, Sammy held roles at Spotify and Editorial Partnerships. These are some very cool companies to work for; what was Spotify like?

 

[00:44.290] - Sammy Malave Jr.

I think I had a great time there. I learned a lot, I grew a lot. So I think it was definitely a period of growth for me.

 

[00:50.590] - Mark Lapidus

Sammy, welcome to Brand USA Talks Travel. I'm excited to be talking photos and licensing today with you.

 

[00:55.890] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Same here, Mark. I'm excited to get into it.

 

[00:57.740] - Mark Lapidus

I think this is the first conversation we've actually had in depth about it. First, let's start by you filling me in on your role as Creative Insights Manager at Getty Images. What do you do there?

 

[01:07.320] - Sammy Malave Jr.

My role is pretty unique in that, as a Insights Manager, I sit on the creative team at Getty, and our role as Insights people, as an Insights team, is really to root our work in our proprietary methodology, which we call VisualGPS. And what that really means, looking at data through three lenses. One of those is what brands are interested in getting from us as a visual platform, so really looking at searches, and that means looking at what brands are interested in by what they're searching for over periods of time.

 

[01:43.190] - Mark Lapidus

Now, when you do that, Sammy, are you looking at searches overall on the whole Internet, or do you just look at what people are searching for in Getty?

 

[01:49.400] - Sammy Malave Jr.

No, that's searches on Getty platform by Getty clients. And looking at those searches over time to get a sense of what brands are interested in across a variety of sectors, across a variety of topics, and then also looking at, beyond search, what brands are actually engaging with. So what they're licensing, what they're choosing, what they're purchasing, what they're downloading. That gives us a sense of what is actually being used out in the visual landscape and the visual zeitgeist. But we're not just limited to brands at all; it's also looking at what the consumer mindset is. We have a proprietary survey that we use to gauge what the consumer mindset is globally, so across 25 countries, which means, I think, averages out to, really, us tapping into about 8,000 consumers worldwide to really get a sense of what consumers think about the world, society, any of the industries that we're interested in at this time. So for the purposes of this conversation, really using that as an opportunity to get a sense of what consumers feel about travel, the state of travel, what images they think best represent travel, and then putting all those three things together in the context of what's happening in the zeitgeist.

 

[02:59.320] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Right? So part of my job with all of that proprietary research is also about looking at what's happening out in the world. What's happening out in the zeitgeist, how does that affect how people look at travel? And that is how we come up with these insights. So my job as a Creative Insights Manager is to take those insights and then disseminate them in two very distinct ways. So one way is to our clients. So brands that really look to us to be a visual partner and a visual strategic partner, we help kind of inform them on how to make the best visual choices with those insights, with insights that we know are unique, that are really going to push visuals forward and really help our clients make better visual choices. So that's one side of the job.

 

[03:41.940] - Mark Lapidus

Is your role related strictly to travel, or do you work in other verticals?

 

[03:45.740] - Sammy Malave Jr.

No, we work in a bunch of verticals that we kind of prioritize. For example, this year I'm working on travel; I'm working across finance and healthcare for the entire Ameri-region, which for us is the U.S., Canada, and Latin America, inclusive of Brazil. So it's really a bunch of a wide range of industries and topics and subjects like diversity and inclusion that help us really have a good sense of what's going on in visual culture. And then kind of the second lens that I work in is for our creators. So in the sense that we're also providing insights to our clients and to brands on how to make better visual choices, we're also directing those insights to the creators that actually create the content that gets licensed and purchased on the platform. So it's not enough to just tell clients to make certain visual choices. We also have to inform and fuel our creators network with what we think is going to be the next iteration of the visual landscape, so that they can create the imagery that's going to push the envelope and eventually sell.

 

[04:47.360] - Mark Lapidus

Sam, you have such a cool job, I'm a little envious. How much of your day is spent with data, and how much of your day is spent with people?

 

[04:53.960] - Sammy Malave Jr.

I mean, I think they're both one and the same, right? I think about maybe 60 or 70% of my job is research, but that doesn't just mean that I'm at my desk alone for most of the day. A lot of that research is in conversation with my colleagues, really pressure testing my insights and what that means for the industries we're working on. This isn't the first time we've done travel research, for example, and we don't always work on the same thing every time. So a lot of my colleagues have insight into what travel was like for the U.S. three years ago, or before the pandemic. So it's really about taking a look at work that has already been done, and really collaborating cross-functionally with folks to make sure that we're really pushing the envelope. So the research is also part of a broader, larger effort to communicate and work together.

 

[05:41.140] - Mark Lapidus

I didn't even realize that you did research, honestly, until this conversation. So how do you share information from your research department with people that work in travel?

 

[05:50.480] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Really there are a couple of ways, and that kind of ties into the ways that we work with brands. We do all this research internally, and we have our own channels like the VisualGPS blog - the website gettyimages.com/visualgps, if folks are interested. That's where we kind of introduce clients to the research that we're doing, right? That's where you can find articles written by anyone on the team to really educate themselves on what are the insights that are popping up across these industries and these topics. But then we also work with clients directly, so really leaning on our sales team to help us make the connections we need to make to speak to folks who might be in need, who are having visual challenges, or who just might be looking to refresh their approach to how they choose visuals, how they use visuals. And that's where we kind of step in as an insights team to say, hey, this is what's going on, right? If you're a travel brand, if you're a brand of hotels or resorts, you're just looking to see what's happening out in the world, we can step in and say, hey, this is what's happening in travel right now, and these are the choices you probably should be making, and these are the ways we can help you make that choice.

 

[06:55.140] - Mark Lapidus

I'm not going to hold against you if you can't answer this next question, but do you have any idea how many destinations - meaning, state and city organizations in the United States - license photography from Getty? Even a guess.

 

[07:05.630] - Sammy Malave Jr.

I don't have a specific number; we don't get that into the weeds. But I will give you kind of an analogous situation. So when I'm doing research - and I mentioned part of that methodology is looking at the visuals that brands license - and what we do is we look at over 250,000 visuals that have been licensed over the past year. And we do that for multiple years. So we're really looking at maybe closer to maybe half a million to a quarter million, or half a million to three quarters of a million images over the past maybe 10 years, licensed exclusively by travel brands. So you can imagine that that is upwards of thousands of travel brands that license that imagery. We don't know specifically city and state organizations, but if that gives you some sense of the scale.

 

[07:51.550] - Mark Lapidus

This might not actually be your area, but I'm going to ask you the question anyway. I'm sure you won't be surprised at this question either. Many people I speak with in the travel industry don't completely understand licensing imagery and video. Are you able to start with kind of the basics of that, and go as deep as you want to?

 

[08:07.940] - Sammy Malave Jr.

It's definitely not my specific role, but Getty offers two ways to license imagery. I think in the conversation up to this point, we've been speaking exclusively about stock imagery. So we work with creators to create the imagery that ultimately gets licensed by brands and to submit that to us. But then we also have an editorial side of the business, and that's really where Getty shows up in the zeitgeist, right? By showing up at these award shows, by showing up or having contributing photographers on the ground for kind of local coverage of these massive global events. And those images can be licensed, too. So I think that's the extent, to my knowledge, but there are those two ways to license imagery with us.

 

[08:49.450] - Mark Lapidus

So I can add a few things to this, having licensed content for many, many years now. A lot of people don't understand that, first of all, they can't just take images from Google. They just can't go to Images and copy images and then use them in any kind of content or marketing, right? A lot of folks don't understand that a license can expire. Sometimes they're forever, and sometimes they're not. A lot of folks don't understand that a license could be for specific use. It could be for like a one-time use, or it could be for many, many different kinds of uses. A lot of folks don't even understand that once they license an image, they still don't have the rights to give it to someone else. I think that's the most common thing; it's a trap, really, that people kind of fall into in the travel industry. And I've seen it go wild this way: someone will license an image from Getty or some other stockhouse, and then put it in their digital asset management system as a Getty image. But then the next person who replaces them several years later has no idea that this is a stock image.

 

[09:49.100] - Mark Lapidus

And then they use it. I know this because sometimes we have destinations that will give us imagery to use. And we have found out the hard way that what we're doing is we're actually using a licensed image. And of course you get whacked for that, because you're not allowed to use it as a pass-through. So you really have to understand what you're doing with licensing. In your experience, how has the concept of authenticity in imagery changed?

 

[10:12.050] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Well, authenticity is very top of mind right now for us as an organization and as a research group, because it is top of mind for the consumer. Authenticity for us is something that equals trust. And it's something that we've kind of been communicating this idea of trust to specifically travel brands this year. It's very important, because authenticity for consumers and research tells us this, that authenticity and visuals specifically means really being genuine, really being real, and showing one's thoughts and emotions around a topic. And that's from our survey results, our proprietary survey. And when we put that through the lens of travel, what we're seeing is that there are some ways to visualize authenticity in a way that makes sense for travel. One obvious way is through diversity, and really expanding who we see as being able to travel and as enjoying the benefits of travel. That's something that we are urging all of the brands that we speak to about travel to really take to heart, is to expand who we see as traveling. And I'll just list off a stat for you is, more than 7 in 10 of American travelers believe it's important for travel companies to celebrate diversity of all kinds.

 

[11:23.940] - Sammy Malave Jr.

But when we look at what brands are using us to choose and what brands are downloading popular travel imagery by brands in the last year, we see that marginalized groups of all kinds are kind of left out of travel imagery. So less than 1% of travel imagery features folks in the LGBTQIA+ community. Less than 1% of travel imagery features folks with bigger bodies.

 

[11:46.490] - Mark Lapidus

I find that it's difficult to find imagery for accessibility.

 

[11:49.920] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Exactly. Disability is something too. And the percentage is there too, it's the same - under 1% of travel images feature folks with disabilities.

 

[11:58.150] - Mark Lapidus

Well, I guess we've all got to work on that.

 

[12:00.040] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Exactly. I think those are really good examples of something that we communicate to brands in order to choose better, but something that we also communicate to creators in order to create the content that we're going to be driving the brands to. Because in a lot of cases this content exists, so it's just a matter of finding it. But there's also a responsibility on our end as the people kind of hosting all of this content and being in a position to inspire creators to make it, to direct them that way.

 

[12:26.180] - Mark Lapidus

Maybe it's just my imagination, but I seem to see Getty photos used everywhere. I literally see your credit in so many places. How much competition does Getty have in the photo licensing business? Any idea?

 

[12:38.200] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Yeah, I mean, just like any company, there's a ton of competition. I think that much is very clear. There are a bunch of organizations and companies and brands that we occupy the space with. But I think what makes us unique is exactly what you just said, is that it's hard to escape us.

 

[12:54.260] - Mark Lapidus

It really is. And believe me, I've tried over the years. I've actually tried other stockhouses. I remember a year where we didn't take Getty's. I wanted to try like two or three more, and I didn't really have budget for everything. And I came back a year later, because I just couldn't find what I was looking for. And I probably should disclose that we're actually a Getty client. We do use your services and really enjoy them.

 

[13:14.470] - Sammy Malave Jr.

And part of the reason for that, too, is our differentiator. Right? We stand behind the fact that we offer high quality content, and that's really what drives us as a business.

 

[13:23.490] - Mark Lapidus

What's the most common mistake you see, Sammy, that destinations are making when it comes to their visual content strategy?

 

[13:29.540] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Well, I think we just spoke about one: not really expanding or showing people in a limited light when it comes to who is able to travel. I think there are some other spaces when it comes to topics like luxury. Luxury is really evolving, and how we depict luxury is evolving. I think travel brands, specifically, what we're seeing is that travel brands are still stuck in this kind of limited view or archaic or stereotypical view of what luxury is, right? Hotels, a couple on a beach, straw hats, you know, that kind of people in isolation, right? Being away from everybody. And that's what historically has been considered luxury. And we want to push brands to think about, what are some new ways we can zoom in to what actually makes experiences luxurious, and how to creatively visualize that. That's one way. I think there's also a notion of what people travel for. I think that's something very specific coming out of the pandemic, that I think more people are traveling for mental health reasons. After the pandemic, I think it's a third of people staying that they're traveling for relaxation and mental health purposes and to recover from the stress of everyday life.

 

[14:37.760] - Sammy Malave Jr.

33% of people state that that's more important to them now than it was before the pandemic. But we also see that people are being active to offset that stress. But we don't really see that active travel really depicted, right? Travel, of course, is historically depicted as an escape and something to use to relax. But if folks are being active in order to relax, we need to see that visualized, too, and that really isn't visualized.

 

[15:05.200] - Mark Lapidus

We could do an entire podcast on user-generated content. Maybe we will someday. But how does it fit into your broader visual strategy?

 

[15:13.120] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's important to really look at how people are using visual media to convey and to create content. And if you think about the proliferation of social media of formats like stories or TikTok, right, vertical formats are the way that most of us consume visual media now. And that's something that we look at in research and something that helps drive our recommendations to consumers, to customers, to clients, to brands. And so even just from a tactical perspective, the format is really important to user-generated content, and helps drive where we see visuals going moving forward.

 

[15:53.030] - Mark Lapidus

I couldn't do a podcast without talking about artificial intelligence, especially this one. AI is already creating a lot of legal issues in photography, mainly due to sampling of photos without permission, and then creating images which are allegedly unique, but we know deep down that they're not, because they're a composite of what the AI is sampling. What are your thoughts about that, and about artificial intelligence in the photography field?

 

[16:17.200] - Sammy Malave Jr.

It is absolutely contentious, but I think what is really appealing to us as Getty is the potential it has to aid in creativity. It can be a great tool in helping folks figure out a creative idea, what that might look like. So I think that it does have a purpose in helping folks idealize and visualize something that may have been harder to do before the introduction of AI as a tool. But when it comes to photography, and specifically to your point, licensing, I think that's something that Getty really kept close to heart and really wanted to lead with in creating our generative AI tool. We partnered with Nvidia to create this tool, but made sure that it was commercially safe by only training the tool on Getty content. So any images that are created using our tool, rest assured that it's commercially safe, because it's only being generated on Getty content, which allows us to ensure that it's commercially safe, that nothing extra or anything that might create any licensing issues we'll get in. But it also allows us to say that we can pay the creators that are informing that model. So any creator whose image or whose video is using an image that someone buys using our generative AI model will get a cut of that profit.

 

[17:31.460] - Mark Lapidus

That's so cool to hear. Okay, last question, Sammy: any other emerging trends we should know about other than artificial intelligence? What else are you looking at?

 

[17:39.020] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Yeah, one thing I didn't get to mention - I kind of mentioned all the hot topics - but one thing that important that I just like talking about, and I think is important to mention, is the importance of food and travel imagery. I grew up personally being a big Anthony Bourdain fan. That's something that, when I started doing this research, I really wanted to investigate a bit more. Knowing that food is such a big part of social media, it's a big part of how me and my friends travel and plan our trips around. And so I really wanted to lend some rigor to that with some data. It really is important, right? That kind of first generation of food influencers, which I count Anthony Bourdain as, really, you can see that throughline today in creators and in people like Padma Lakshmi and Stanley Tucci and Eva Longoria having these kind of big shows that expose people to these different areas of culinary interest and that impacts how people travel. And what we're seeing is that with food, or when we think about the importance of social, and so food and video play a part together. But what we're seeing is that only 11% of popular food videos on the Getty platform, so videos revolving around travel chosen by travel brands, only 11% of them revolve around food.

 

[18:54.440] - Sammy Malave Jr.

So what we're noticing is that there's a big gap when it comes to using food as a way to denote travel, but also to inspire trust and lean back into that often that we mentioned earlier.

 

[19:05.110] - Mark Lapidus

You'll be very happy to know that we actually licensed Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations for our TV network for GoUSA TV. We still show it around the world, and the reaction is still what it was 10 years ago. People love that show. They still love it because it's not just food that he's showing off, it's the destination and how he feels about it. And it comes through in such an authentic way that you can't help be attracted to it.

 

[19:28.290] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Right. And it's food, but it's food as a means of connecting to a place and connecting to a culture. So it's not necessarily specifically about the food, but it's using the food as a way in.

 

[19:38.420] - Mark Lapidus

Very well put, very well put.

 

[19:40.140] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Food goes a long way to inspiring trust.

 

[19:42.420] - Mark Lapidus

It has been such a pleasure speaking with you, Sammy. We should do this again. In fact, the next time we should do it, we should just stick to research, because you could probably talk about that just by itself for 20 minutes. But I wanted to have this conversation a little broader the first time we talked so that I could understand better what your areas of interest are and where our conversation might go in the future. So let's do it again.

 

[20:03.580] - Sammy Malave Jr.

Absolutely. Happy to do it whenever.

 

[20:05.540] - Mark Lapidus

And that's it for Brand USA Talks Travel. I'm Mark Lapidus, thanks for listening.

 

[20:10.000] - Intro/Outro

Your feedback is welcome. Email us at [email protected], or call 202-793-6256. Brand USA Talks Travel is produced by Asher Meerovich, who also composes music and sound. Media producer, Nthanze Kariuki, with assistance from Casey D'Ambra. Engineering, Brian Watkins, Kat Pommer, and Antonio Tyler. Art by Mimi Jung. Please share this podcast with your friends in the travel industry. You may also enjoy many of our archived episodes, which you can find on your favorite podcast platform. Safe travels!

 

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In this Episode:
Manager of Creative Insights at Getty Images - Sammy Malave Jr.
Sammy Malave Jr.
Manager of Creative Insights at Getty Images

Host, Brand USA Talks Travel Podcast; Vice President, Content & Marketing Technology
Mark Lapidus
Host, Brand USA Talks Travel Podcast; Vice President, Content & Marketing Technology