Unsplash's Advertising Pitch

It’s time for a new kind of advertising for the internet.

This is the headline of Unsplash’s new Brand page. Unsplash, for those unaware is a stock image site of, well, non-stock images. They recently introduced a Brand page that’s essentially a good ol’ fashioned sales page to pitch advertising to brands, large or small, that are increasingly frustrated by social media marketing and how often marketing department stats get overblown (how many apps can really have over a billion users?)

It’s simple and well done, from the headline to examples of what’s broken with social media advertising. Ads are structured on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube to be inserted between media, whether that’s videos, posts or stories. Unsplash is saying, Hey, let’s partner up to put your product in our photos and let social media, journalism and PR take it from there.

This is a much more slow-burn strategy, as the images could just sit on Unplash.com for some time before being picked up. I could also imagine that if I need a photo of someone holding a beverage and have the option between a generic bottle or a bright red Coca Cola bottle, I’m probably going to go with the generic photo unless I’m working with Coke. Their advertising partner strategy is a fine line of product placement. On one hand being too subtle the consumer will blink and miss it but on the opposite end is being so blatantly obvious, it screams product placement (like a Samsung phone in a ‘10 music video).