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- Trying to say trust and confidence. Actually saying ‘lazy picture research.’
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- The inevitable animal metaphor – seeing further, running faster, reaching higher
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- When you want to educate your readers, you reach for a chalkboard metaphor.
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- What’s this? Someone added words to my keyboard!
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- The reassuring power of grey hair.
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- The woman in a sharp suit. The only other person who works at this company.
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- Shiny office buildings. Even if you’re operating out of a warehouse in Kiev.
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- The road sign metaphor. An apt metaphor but massively overused.
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- The upward-only graph. (They always go up don’t they?)
I’m shocked you left out perhaps the most iconic bad marketing stock photo of all time. The dartboard/bullseye photo signifying “On Target” marketing/advertising/whatever.
A staple of talent-free marketers worldwide, it’s a true classic.
Definitely. I’ve lost track of the number of bullseyes I’ve seen. I’ve probably used a few too.
Glorious! Nothing tells a customer or prospect “We love you” better than naff clipart and photography.
In education we have the original, good idea “light bulb” eeeeek. And if I never see a shiny wooden table surrounded by a balanced gender and ethnic mix of (just too old and too smart to be) students showing off their dental work, it’ll be too soon by far
The light bulb in all its variations is a classic. I can’t believe I forgot it.
We’re all laughing here in Buenos Aires. In fact, we did use one of the pictures -the lady & the graph- for one of our clients.
Very funny.
It’s embarassing to admit, but I’ve used all these images at some point or other.
Matthew
Thanks for this. You’ve made my day:))
No ladders? No ‘climbing to success’? What is the world coming to?!
I love the road signs. It subtly illustrates the fact that Marketing and Strategy are going in very different directions. Blame the poor clip art in presentations to the executive board for that I guess.
The company I work for has a full internal repository of such clip arts. The fact that those visuals are created specifically for us means they are at least new to the eye, even though we cannot avoid many of the pitfalls you describe. The carefully-balanced panel of professional-looking people with perfect teeth always draws a sigh from me. Even though ethnicities and genders are kept in balance, you will notice that, more often than not, the person who appears to be in charge is either white or male or both.
We also use the lightbulb of course, but the pictogram has now been changed to a more sustainable lightbulb (from pear-shaped to spiral-shaped) in line with corporate policy. So I guess it embodies both innovation and sustainability. Double whammy.