What is Brand Photography

What is Brand Photography?

Photography that is used to support and communicate a Brand.

Brand – An entity that is understood  to identify a product , person or service.

We all know what a brand is, but researching all the definitions seems to provide more confusion than clarity.

One thing is certain, a logo is not a Brand.

However as the most successful Brands can be identified by their logo it is certainly part of the answer.

Any tech that has an apple on it, there is a good chance its an Apple, possibly the most success brand of all time?

The visual communication that is used often uses graphics, but often in subtle ways, the clarity and simple deign that apple employs is calculated to reenforce the brand, the photography and videos that Apple use provides a design aesthetic that again is communicating the Brand, others shall imitate, but this can be just an indication of a inferior product wanting to be the elite?

Nowadays as every business is aware, you have to look after the Brand!

‘On Brand’ is used to help employees reinforce communication, its not just images, its about ethos, about green credentials and all that the Brand stands for!

I have worked for many famous Brands over many years, from White Horse Whiskey and E&J  Gallo Wines to Rolls Royce and Bentley. All were great fun, but I always enjoy a new Brand to work on, having an emotional investment in delivering material that helps establish the company to a state when the marketing and comms communicates instantly the Brand and what it represents!

I became involved early on when Marsh & Parsons decided to enhance their Brand and take on many of the serious players in the Estate agency world.

A campaign that was copy led was already underway, but the idea of using portraits to communicate types of property was a stroke of genius, both for the creatives, but also for the client, to radically change the way an Estate Agency created a ‘New’ Brand.

Although it had been around for ever (Established 1856), it started to create a stir, with metaphor of person as a property.

The initial campaign was shot and started to appear not only in the windows of the Agents offices across London, but then on poster sites across the Capital, mostly on the underground, but also on Bus shelters and 48sheet, poster sites.

The concepts were the developed by Steve & Sarah Stretton and I am grateful that they choose me to help create what has become an award winning campaign. There are many at Marsh & Parsons that I also have to thank, especially all those who became subjects for the campaign when the Brand communication moved into the offices and the staff were celebrated and mini posters were printed across the branches and online.

The campaign won numerous awards especially in the Estate Agency sector, a single image won the best Advertising single image in the AOP awards in 2017, certainly one of my career highlights.

Most of the Brand campaign were original images taken with a small but talented  crew at a studio near Stratford on Avon. Where time sensitive subjects were used, the images were stock shots, such as Teresa May & Donald Trump. Eventually more stock images were used and then the company were taken over by Dexters another major Estate agency in 2023, 8 years after I started on the Brand campaign.

A book about the Marsh & Parsons  Brand was complied and printed in limited numbers and

It is a prized publication in my library .

I continue to shoot Brand Photography for a number of people and clients, but it is rare to have a consistent campaign that is still remembered for its daring and creativity such as that for Marsh & Parsons.

Marsh & Parsons – Brand Campaign-