Selling photos to a major restaurant chain

[Melany]

I've sold photos to (small time) magazines, a Yellow Pages publisher, Online companies, but I got an offer today for 4 of my photos that has totally flabbergasted me.

An interior design firm contacted me, and said they are designing a nearby McDonalds (Mickie Dee's is doing an update reno on many of their restaurants)

To give you an idea of what they want:

Here’s a little info about the project. The photographs would be manipulated similarly to the attached images. This is basically a specific interior decor scheme that McDonald’s has been using over the past few months. We find local images, and then create a halftone screen and do a color overlay on top. The images would then be printed on a micro-vented wallcovering and installed as wallpaper. The pieces in this restaurant range from around 5 feet wide to 9 feet wide and are around 6 feet tall. One image (the black and white example attached) would be printed inside a ½” translucent acrylic panel. It’s unfortunate to alter the images since they are so nice! But this McDonald’s scheme does not allow us to alter the stylization of the images.



If you are interested, please send me your pricing. Each photo would be printed only once for this restaurant…not used multiple times over multiple locations. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.

I'm totally at a LOSS how to charge for these 4 photos. It seems to me that they will be doing all the required editing (other than what I've already done). I've never sold to a large company like McDonald's. Do you consider the end user, or just the fact that this will be a "one use only" for my photos?

I'm a little overwhelmed! What's a fair price for 4 photos? Have any of you ever done this? A little help please!!!

I'm also EXCITED to see my photos SIX FEET tall in McDonalds!!!

[texxter]

Washington DC Photographer: Pricing - Advertising Photography is a good starting point for assignment photography. But because these images exist, I would recommend "Rights Managed" pricing from Getty Images.

[Fireball]

Wow, that's exciting! I'll be anxious to see what the end result is.

[Tom]

This link should help, too.

Pricing Guides | American Society of Media Photographers

[Melany]

Awesome! Thanks for those links guys.

I'm excited -- I want to see my 5x6 feet photos hanging in McDonalds!! And in ACRYLIC and wallpaper!!!!

[arich]

I'd be pretty excited about that check lol

[danchez]

keep us updated, would love to see what images they are using.

[Fireball]

Yeah, be sure and get a picture of it when they're up and share with the rest of us!

[TxTowman]

Hope it goes well for you!

[texkam]

Just saw this post. My wife was a restaurant designer for YUM! Brands for 16 years and now currently for Starbucks. If it's not too late I can ask her. She's always putting local relevance in her stores.

Unlike YUM! Brands where the franchisee is responsible for building the store, I think McD's has corporate build them with the franchisee paying for the completed build. Probably good news for you since most franchisees tend to want to do things more cheaply than corporate.

[scottbuckel]

First it is great that a local McD's wants to use our images. It is great they are adding imagery that is local to their restaurants.I am assuming that they are interested in work you have in your files, and they are no contracting with you to create new images.

One suggestion that I was given in a similar situation was to ask about the budget for the project, many times you contact will freely tell you. This number may be lower than you want and/or expect.

When pricing things like this from your own stock photography can be rather difficult and daunting. One could use Getty pricing, but it would not be commercial as it will not be an advertisement for McDonalds. Also, they will also be paying a designer to do the stylizing of the images. I would think realistically that your pricing model should be closer to the editorial pricing you may see at Getty.

I was quoted a budget that was close to the large images size at iStockphoto two years ago for albeit smaller chain, I did mange to convince them that they needed to pay more for the license and I did manage to get 10X the original amount. Before you get excited the large size at iStockphoto sell for less than $20. I was paid about $2000 for the entire deal and the installation cost the restaurant an additional $7000 to complete the art work and install it on the walls. I negotiated this, then ftp'ed the files to a server, I invested about 2.5 hours into the process. The bad part about stock photography is that your overhead and investment is irrelevant to the art director a usage determines price. Now if they want to install you images in more than one restaurant then the cost increases.

The good thing you have is that you are working with a design firm, if they like your work and they like working with you, you may get many more sales in the future.

Another approach - If you want to price according to art work at an art show the minimum markup is about 3-5X the cost of your cost to produce the image (printing+mounting+matting+framing). Another approach to pricing could be to ask how much the wall paper and acrylic print cost to create and mount, and then quote a percentage of that amount.

I hope this helps,

Scott

[Phisch]

+1 to Scottbuckel's comment to ask for their budget. It's entirely possible that it's also higher than you would have thought.

[texkam]

Based on the fact that this is a local interior design firm and they can see you are currently pricing prints for $120.00, I don't think they'd bite on anything more than $300.00 each x 4 = $1200.00. They'll probably whine about that too.