Sure, I’m in:  Dirt sells, and nothing’s better than a celebrity in crisis, right? 

So I read about the impending financial ruin of Annie Leibovitz with some interest.   But I’m always considering the less obvious side of things, so when I was finished, something else hit me that I think is a lot more fascinating:  Her status as a “famous photographer”. 

Hmmm… pretty rare title, huh?  

In the first few pages of Conquering Deception© you’ll see a quote by my alter-ego, Calvin L. Hutton:  ”Persistence is more powerful than talent”.  But considering Leibovitz’ success caused me to consider this:  “Marketing is more powerful than talent or persistence.”

How many “famous photographers” can you name? 

When I tried to think of as many as I could, guess what?  I could only come up with two right off:  Leibovitz and Ansel Adams.

Maybe I’m not up to speed on this one. 

Maybe you know of more.

But if you Google “famous photographers” you’ll find Leibovitz and Adams at the top of any “list”, then a bunch of names most people have never heard.  With a little more thought I did come up with Helmut Newton… and then Richard Avedon.  Better known in years past, and not exactly household names.

So Ansel is long dead, and that leaves AL as the lone superstar of photography.  The Elvis Presley of the camera.  But living.  And female, of course. 

Becoming a famous photographer is only slightly easier than becoming a famous florist.  Tough businesses both if you want to become a celebrity from them.  So how did she get to be the most famous photographer of our time—or all time, really?  Quite an amazing feat, isn’t it?  Photographs themselves sometimes become famous, but even then the fame is short-lived and the person who shot them rarely gets to share in it. 

Are there better photographers than AL out there?  If so, who can name one?  Talent without notoriety is hard to distinguish from having no talent at all. 

The ones you’ve never heard of didn’t work for Rolling Stone Magazine. 

They didn’t take a stark, creative, and highly memorable picture of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. 

They haven’t stayed public, relevant, current, and most importantly, controversial—think Miley Cyrus. 

There are trainloads of people who have marketable talents, but are unknown—and unappreciated—for having them.  What are they missing?  It could be Marketing by Association.

Hear the word ”marketing” and we think of intentional efforts:  Advertising.  Publicity stunts.  Even scandal exploitation.  Some of AL’s photo shoots verged on being stunts, some of her photos verged on scandalous—but advertising was never a necessity.  No signs, no radio or TV, no Yellow Pages.  Truth is, no amount of advertising could have given her the success—or the fame—she found. 

If you need something, find someone who has it.

If you want to be more successful, associate with people who earn more than you do.

If you want to become famous, get to know people who already are.  (Sound too simple?  It’s not.  It’s been done.  Think Paris Hilton.

Regarding money and success, you’ve probably heard, “It’s who you know.”  That’s true.  But it ain’t a bad thing—it’s a necessity.  No one can go it alone, we need the help of others.  We need people who have connections we don’t, or an expertise we need to learn, or as in the case of AL, someone with a famous mug to amp things up a bit.

And when you find those people, you’ll need to have the skills to do what Annie’s always done:  Get them to sit still—that’s the start of Marketing by Association.  For the next step, though, you won’t need a camera.  It’ll be your words that get the job done. 

Because it’s not just “who you know”—it’s also “how you say it”.

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Thanks for checking in, I welcome your comments…

-jef

Tags: Marketing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.