By Joel Albrizio, President
"Adlife's Images of the Chicken That Is"
Retailers across America deal with theft as a form of shrink every day. For example, Walmart has stepped up efforts to close as many holes as possible to stop shoplifting and its drain on profitability.
These two articles (two of many) from Forbes and Business Insider illustrate the headwinds Walmart faces with shoplifting and its effects on the ability to remain a low cost provider.
http://www.businessinsider.com/walmart-theft-threatens-profits-and-police-2016-6
If Walmart has determined that to continue its success, it must solve many of the shoplifting issues disrupting profitability.
Adlife, and our exclusive photography site PreparedFoodPhotos.com, faces the same theft issues Walmart is forced to resolve in its path to success.
"We Live In a Copy and Paste World of Digital Photography Theft"
Adlife, like most advertising agencies and photography studios, realizes digital theft in attempting to oversee the licensed use of our "brand" or product inventory - the all important library of images. The very images our retailers rely upon.
Every Adlife image PreparedFoodPhotos.com presents for license has been photographed by an Adlife photographer, at great expense, exclusively for Adlife and its customers. Exclusive prepared food photography is our "brand." It has taken us 40 years to build this branded photography library.
About a year ago, Adlife, like many of our peers, had a decision to make. Theft of images was effecting the Adlife brand and our ability to remain a low cost provider. Like any retailer, Adlife realized the paying customer would face unnecessarily higher prices should Adlife allow digital photography theft of its inventory to continue.
As a company our images were not only stolen for commercial use on web products everywhere, but additionally for sale on web sites other than Adlife or PreparedFoodPhotos.com. Our images were actually under the names of others as a source of unauthorized sales or corporate theft for profit.
While we understood, like Getty Images, Adlife (like many of the companies attempting to resolve this) would receive unwarranted negative press, we understood the elimination of photography theft must be accomplished.
Much of of this negative press originates from the very individuals themselves, blogging in an attempt to vilify honest photography businesses into allowing continued theft.
"Adlife refused to allow bad press to force increases upon our customers"
Like many of the national image providers, Adlife has been referred to as a troll and anything else you could ever imagine. However the facts remain clear, it is both illegal and unethical to use, without authorization, images that are under U. S. Copyright protection and licensed for use by ethical paying customers.
When any retailer or wholesaler licenses Adlife or PreparedFoodPhotos.com images, they can expect the exclusivity and brand building efforts they have counted on when they put their trust collectively in Adlife and PreparedFoodPhotos.com
In closing, many have asked why I choose to write about what I see in the supermarket industry today and my ideas. At Adlife we believe great ideas and its resulting branding will give new life and direction to any company. So for that reason we chose to open the discussion.
Joel M. Albrizio, President Adlife Marketing & Communications
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