don’t sleep on lifestyle branding
Branding can feel like a vague term. The general idea is easy enough to grasp but when you dig down, it’s not an exact science. A lot of different things a business or organization or school does to stand out falls under the branding umbrella. One component of branding is photography, of course. But, even just within photography, what you choose to photograph and how you organize and deploy those images can have huge impacts on the messages you’re sending to the world. One thing I love to tell anyone who is starting a new brand or considering a rebrand is: don’t sleep on lifestyle branding.
Lifestyle branding is imaging and messaging that makes a product or service relatable to the people that might use or engage with it. It’s the idea of creating a sense of connection between the consumer and the product by sowing the ways the product can impact or improve the consumer’s lifestyle.
Lifestyle marketing photography is a great way to show off your product or service (or self!) in a more approachable, real world way. Most people can imagine how this works for physical products — but it can be even more impactful for recruiting — from employment to schooling to tourism and even housing. When a potential employee or student can imagine themselves on your campus, the likelihood of them choosing you skyrockets. My recent shoots with Ballinger and Swartley Bros. are great examples of companies using lifestyle photography in their hiring efforts.
There are a lot of ways that lifestyle marketing can be important, but one of the main ways is to help you stand out authentically in a very crowded visual field. According to a report by Ernst & Young, 92% of Gen Z participants polled “indicated that being authentic and true to oneself is extremely or very important.” The report suggests that has only become more true since the pandemic forced everyone to rethink how they value their time. So authenticity reigns supreme. Between what they see in the real world and what they experience virtually, the average person is bombarded with images — 4,000-10,000 ads a day by some estimates. The best way to stand out from all of the noise is to just be real. Especially in a day and age of savvy consumers who can spot an advertisement from a mile away — authenticity sells.
And that’s where lifestyle photography comes in. After all, what’s more real than showing off what you actually do, being done by the people who actually do it?
If the ultimate goal is authenticity, it’s often best to use your real students or employees in your real campus or office spaces. This doesn’t mean that the shoot itself isn’t manufactured. Quite the opposite, actually. But unlike a highly-produced, highly-manicured marketing campaign, a lifestyle marketing campaign focuses on how the subject works in real life settings. A good lifestyle marketing photographer can make your real people in your real spaces look real spectacular.
Interested in learning more? Let’s chat.