Ms. Vaughan writes: In what was reported as a tumultuous year in the stock industry, there has been a great deal of negativity about the stock industry in the press and yet our own experience has been far from this. Overall for Image Source, it has been a great year with double digit growth by revenue and volume in our channels and with particular successes to note in Europe and Japan.  
 
Image Source has continued to focus on the high end of the market – in terms of quality, pricing and market perception. Creatively, it has been a record 2007 for us with 30,000 new images of the highest standard produced by the Image Source Creative Team and more Photographers than ever wanting to work for us. Again we continued to focus on delivering the highest quality, most relevant content to the market.
 
There is no denying that this is a period of convulsive change in our industry, driven by Technology, but as the owner of the leading producer in the industry, I believe I should speak out with a message of hope to the Industry. There is growth and opportunity within the market. The position at the high end has remained defensible – we have always believed that Quality will win out and that is why we have invested in the best creative team in the industry. In 2007, we delivered some of the highest returns on investment for our photographers
 
When we took the bold decision to place some of our older material in to a new shopping venue at a different price point in Midstock, we did it to maintain our reputation for having the best quality imagery in the industry. Our core collection merited an edit and some of the older material would have otherwise been retired by us. However, following the lead of the retail sector, we decided to trial some of the past seasons collection at different outlets. Our photographers trust us to make the best decisions for them, as our interests are very much aligned to theirs – to be the best in class, to maximise revenues for them, to distil our core collection so that the newest, freshest imagery is served up to the market at the optimal price point.
 
My message to Photographers and indeed to anyone involved in the creative stills sector is that there is still much opportunity for growth – we have seen this across our network with those partners who continue to serve the best interests of the customer – i.e. offering up the best and most relevant imagery at the top of the search engines. There is a greater opportunity than ever for those who continue to push forward the boundaries of quality, high production values, improved technical and legal integrity to win in this market. We are seeing success at the high end of the market, raising our prices once again on January 1st 2008, and having the confidence to either retire older material that does not meet today’s standards or to place them at other outlets.
 
I believe that Technology has led to a glut of too many images in the market and that the customer is short changed where distribution agencies play the website ‘margin optimization’ game rather than the ‘customer optimization’ game. If we all as stock agencies had the confidence to edit out older, less relevant material and promote the freshest, most relevant imagery – I believe the customer would be better served and that some of the gloom that has cast a shadow over our industry would be quickly dispersed.
 
When I look forward in 2008, I am more optimistic than ever. Some people have become despondent of the creative stills sector – I would argue that now, more than ever, is the time to re-embrace this sector at the high end, which remains ultimately defendable. Any Photographer or Producer trying to produce on the cheap and cheerful side be warned, the clients’ expectation is now higher and they know they can go to Microstock for that sort of material.
 
Our past year’s investment in 30,000 new images and our continued investment in 2008 together with the rest of our core collection that has been produced with the highest production values and the world’s best photographers will deliver market growth for Image Source and its stakeholders this year and for years to come. We remain ever positive and enthusiastic about the industry, with a passion that is supported by our numbers. My message to all Photographers, Producers and indeed Distributors in this sector is that if you have the courage of your conviction, if you have integrity in your image creation, if you believe in being customer focused and delivering the highest quality and most relevant material and if you are prepared to invest in developing the expertise of your image creators, then indeed, the future is very bright.
 
And we must all in our industry never forget the management guru Peter Drucker’s most famous quote:
 
“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”