By bbr

by Sarah Warlick, content director

If your office looked like this you’d be in modeling, not professional services.

Recently we posted about the importance of using real pictures that reflect the truth about your firm and its people. The main point we tried to make is that stock photography isn’t always appealing and can embarrass your firm. Just ask the folks who implemented the Republicans Are Black campaign.

At the very least, this kind of generic image does nothing to differentiate you in the marketplace. That’s not to say they have no valid place – we use them ourselves on occasion, and Photoshop is a highly valuable and versatile tool. But limiting your imagery to the usual selection of attractive, ethnically diverse groups holding nice pens as they look at a bar graph doesn’t let potential clients know what makes you the right fit for them. Worse yet, it implies that you might be hiding something awful behind those bland stock images. Do your partners have more than the usual number of eyes? Is your audit team composed entirely of werewolves? Anything is possible…

The fun part is that besides missing out on an opportunity to share something honest about your firm, there really is a lot of scope for disaster when you rely too heavily or carelessly on stock photos. These graphics are perfectly okay and quite useful in some situations, but it’s unwise to automatically opt for purchased imagery instead of original content or actual photographs.

The Republican Party has been getting an unfortunate series of lessons in this particular area recently, though they’re certainly not the only offenders. It seems that Governor Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania didn’t pay enough attention to the Republicans Are Black debacle. Instead of wising up to the hazards of indiscriminate stock photography use, Tom took it one step further, and guess what? It still didn’t work!

Yes, old Tom wanted to include a nice shot of himself surrounded by the richly diverse constituents he serves. A fine goal, well worth doing. But since there are no African Americans in Pennsylvania, not a single African American was willing to be photographed with him, it was far too dangerous, complicated and expensive to import an actual African American to include in the image, in an effort to prove us wrong about stock photography for unknown reasons, his campaign opted to buy a stock image of an African American woman and Photoshop it into the scene that’s included as the footer graphic on each of his campaign’s web pages.

And of course, it’s a recognizable image that anyone can buy from Shutterstock for less than you probably paid for lunch. After a great deal of public mockery, the campaign came forward to explain. In its defense, that entire image of people surrounding the smiling governor is a medley of Photoshopped real people and stock images. That’s not much of a defense.

Look, it’s just not worth it. Do not use stock photography when colleagues and clients would be more appropriate. Take pictures of the people who make up your real team and real clients, warts and all. They’re interesting! Besides, no one expects you to hire uniformly photogenic staff – those are called models, not professional services providers.And whatever you do, do not rely on Photoshop to change reality.

If, after viewing the pictures, you become concerned that the entire collection of shots contains not a hint of diversity, perhaps that’s an issue you want to address. Consider revised hiring practices, reaching out to a broader client base or another strategy that has an effect on the real problem, not just the image problem.

Or maybe there is no problem. Diversity of thought is good. Forcing every possible scenario to include at least one woman, one Latino, one Asian and one African American in addition to the standard quota of white men in suits, however, isn’t necessary or realistic. It also doesn’t guarantee that diversity of thought you were going for.

Just be who you are, serve clients as well as you can and try to be a firm you can be proud of. Most of the time that will naturally result in at least a smidgen of ethnic and gender variation. If it doesn’t, figure out why and whether you’re okay with that from both a business and an ethical perspective. But don’t try to cover it up with stock photography and Photoshop. It won’t end well.