Businessmodel of Getty Images

Customer Segments

Getty Images serves a global network of customers across multiple sectors. It primarily serves three customers segments:

• Creative Professionals, including bloggers, writers, graphic designers, and advertising and marketing professionals;
• Media, including print and online publishing houses such as news portals, magazines, newspapers, and broadcasters; and
• Corporate, including small, medium and large businesses that use the Company’s images in their in-house design, marketing and communication departments. Getty Images includes a number of high-profile media companies among its customers, including The Guardian, the BBC, The IB Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Businesswire.com.

Getty Images serves customers in more than 100 countries worldwide. Its most significant markets, however, are the US and the UK, where it has estimated market shares of around 52% and 25% respectively.

Value Propositions

Getty Provides value to its customers in the following ways:

• The quality of its products, with photographs and media content provided by a network of experienced professionals;
• The diversity of its content, which covers a range of subject matters, from current events to sports to nature and more;
• Its reputation and industry standing, with the Company being one of the oldest and most well-established companies in its industry, with it’s a name associated with a range of high-profile clients;
• The breadth of its international coverage, with the Company serving clients across more than 100 countries; and
• Its accessibility and flexibility, with customers able to easily search for content through the Company’s website and quickly make purchases on a self-service basis. ### Channels

Getty Images operates a website at www.gettyimages.com, as well as more than 40 country-specific sites such as www.getcre8ive.com.ph for the Philippines and www.gettyimages.ae for the United Arab Emirates, through which customers are able to browse, search and purchase the Company’s content. Getty Images also operates through its affiliate iStock, ThinkStock and Photos.com brands, which offer similar services to the Company’s main online channel.

In addition to its online sales channels, Getty Images also operates its own direct sales team, with a presence in numerous operating jurisdictions across Europe, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.

Customer Relationships

Getty Images products and content are available on a self-service basis through its multiple online channels and affiliates brands. Customers are able to register for an account through the Company’s website, manage their payments, browse content and place orders without interacting with members of the Company’s sales staff. The majority of the Company’s media content is provided by its community of professional photographers and content providers.

Getty Images does provide personalised sales assistance to customers, who are able to contact local sales representatives over the phone, via email or through an online chat service. The Company establishes long-standing relationships with many of its media customers in the form of editorial subscriptions.

Getty Images operates several social media accounts, including with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, through which it is able to interact directly with its customers. It also hosts a Press Room and Stories and Trends sections on its website, which it uses to provide further information to customers on its various activities.

Key Activities

Getty Images creates and distributes images, audio and video products, documents, press kits, and other visual content to businesses across more than 100 countries worldwide. Its content spans contemporary creative imagery to news, sports, entertainment, and archival imagery products.

In addition to its stock photo licensing services it also provides photo assignment services, and research and clearance services.

Getty Images offers users its Getty Images API, which helps customers to streamline their workflows by providing direct access to licensed content, as well as providing digital publicity distribution, media management, and image embedding services.

Getty Images primarily serves creative professionals, media houses and broadcasters – including a number of the world-s best known newspapers and magazines, and corporate entities

Key Partners

Getty Images utilises the services and resources of a number of partners in the provision of its stock content services. These partnerships include:

• Alliance Partnerships, comprising companies with which the Company embarks upon joint-venture projects and shares resources and tools;
• Distribution Partnerships, comprising companies with which the Company shares distribution channels;
• Content Partnerships, comprising professional photographers and media houses that provide media content for the platform, and tie-ups in which the Company provides content to media outlets;
• Technology Partnerships, comprising technology companies that assist the Company in effectively delivering its solutions. Getty Images has recently launched partnerships with NDTV Prime in a bid to find the next generation of Indian photographers, with Conde Nast to showcase rare images from the fashion archives, with Dropbox to help provide customers with instant access to their photos, and with EyeEm on compiling a crowdsourced photography collection.

Key Resources

Getty Images key resources are its website and intellectual properties, its catalogue of stock media content, its IT infrastructure, its partnerships and contributors, and its personnel.

Searches of records published by the US Patent and Trademark Office identified two identical patent applications filed in the name of Getty Images from 2012 and 2014. The applications, entitled ‘Automatic identification of digital content related to a block of text, such as a blog entry’, relate to a system for identifying digital content.

Cost Structure

Getty Images incurs cost in relation to the development of its technology and its stock photo platform, the maintenance of its IT infrastructure, the collection and management of its media content, the management of its partnerships, and the retention of its personnel.

The Company accrues administrative costs in relation to the payment of salaries and benefits for its employees and in relation to the operation of its international network of offices in the form of rent and utilities.

Revenue Streams

Getty Images generates revenue through the licensing and sale of its stock media content. It sells its content in a variety of ways, including:

• One-Off Purchases, including revenue derived from the licensing or sale of content in a single transaction;
• Ultra Packs, comprising revenue generated from the sale of packs of 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 photos for a discounted group price; and
• Editorial Subscriptions, comprising revenue derived from subscription fees paid by larger media clients. Getty Images is a privately-owned company and, as such, does not publish its financial figures. The Company, however, was reported to have generated around $201.7 million in total revenue for the quarter ending 30th June 2015.