"Skip the expensive photo shoot..." - What the #%^@ !

This section of a newsletter (at right) landed in my inbox lat night - 8/24 at 5:00:26 PM EDT because I am a past Modern Postcard client, and then at 9:23:16 PM EDT, my inbox gets the following below:



One of the sentences in it is:

we stated to "skip the expensive photo shoot" by using iStockphoto instead. We sincerely apologize as this miscommunicates our intentions and our feelings about professional photography...The two co-founders of Modern Postcard started their careers as photographers and are intensely loyal to the photography profession.

Sorry - someone "intensely loyal" wouldn't do that. Maybe someone "loyal" by accident, but intense? No.

(Continued after the Jump)

They go on to stand by the statement with the excuse:

The target audience of this service is small / home office businesses on a limited budget that have never been able to afford quality photography and therefore have never used it.

No, your "target" audience was the revenue that your photographer "friends" earn serving these businesses, and I got one, so the e-mail blast certainly wasn't targeted at all. Further, I have, in the last six months, done assignments that were portraits of home office business owners and other small businesses, and let me tell you, setting up a 9 foot seamless in someone's living room for a full length portrait isn't easy.

When you say:

We enjoy a strong relationship with the artistic community and will continue to do everything possible to help them promote their talent and grow their businesses.

you can start by firing the marketing person who allowed this nonsense to occur in the first place. This would fall into doing "everything possible." Your staff should be keenly aware of the landscape of it's clientele, and the challenges we face - and the problems with microstock are well publicized to be sure.

They invite comments, so send yours: customercare@modernpostcard.com.

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