Tag: shutterstock

New York, USA – Getty Images and Shutterstock have announced that they entered into a definitive merger agreement to combine in a merger of equals transaction, creating a premier visual content company. The combined company, which would have an enterprise value of approximately $3.7b, will be named Getty Images Holdings, Inc.

The merger of Getty Images and Shutterstock will result in a more comprehensive and diverse content library, delivering greater value to customers, enhancing opportunities for contributors, and strengthening their dedication to inclusive and representative content. 

Additionally, the combined company’s improved financial position is anticipated to boost its ability to invest in new products and drive innovation, meeting the demands of a rapidly changing and highly competitive market.

Upon completion of the merger, Craig Peters, CEO of Getty Images, will assume the role of CEO for the unified company. The new entity’s Board of Directors will consist of eleven members: Craig Peters, six representatives appointed by Getty Images, and four representatives from Shutterstock, including Paul Hennessy, Shutterstock’s CEO. Mark Getty, the current chairman of Getty Images, will serve as the chairman of the board for the combined organisation.

The merger aims to drive cutting-edge innovation by enabling greater investment in advanced content creation, enhanced event coverage, and customer-focused technologies such as improved search capabilities, 3D imagery, and generative AI. By combining complementary portfolios, the unified company will offer a wider range of visual content products, including still imagery, video, music, 3D assets, and more. 

For content creators, this merger presents significantly expanded opportunities to connect with customers worldwide. Financially, the strengthened balance sheet and increased cash flow generation will allow the combined company to accelerate debt repayment, lower borrowing costs, and pursue new avenues for value creation for customers and stockholders. 

Additionally, the merger is expected to yield substantial cost synergies, with projected savings of $150m to $200m annually achieved within three years post-close, with the majority realised in the first 12 to 24 months.

Craig Peters, CEO at Getty Images, said, “Today’s announcement is exciting and transformational for our companies, unlocking multiple opportunities to strengthen our financial foundation and invest in the future—including enhancing our content offerings, expanding event coverage, and delivering new technologies to better serve our customers.”

He added, “With the rapid rise in demand for compelling visual content across industries, there has never been a better time for our two businesses to come together. By combining our complementary strengths, we can better address customer opportunities while delivering exceptional value to our partners, contributors, and stockholders.”

Meanwhile, Paul Hennessy, CEO at Shutterstock, commented, “We are excited by the opportunities we see to expand our creative content library and enhance our product offering to meet diverse customer needs.”

He added, “We expect the merger to produce value for the customers and stockholders of both companies by capitalising on attractive growth opportunities to drive combined revenues, accelerating product innovation, realising significant cost synergies and improving cash flow. We look forward to working closely with the Getty Images management team to complete the transaction and drive the next chapter of growth.”

Australia – Envato, the online community for digital creative assets and templates, has launched a new visual brand identity, signalling a strategic transformation following its acquisition by Shutterstock.

Envato’s new brand identity features a refreshed look, an updated logo, and a redesigned website. Beyond a mere visual update, this rebrand represents a strategic transformation, poised to redefine Envato’s creative presence and enhance the overall product experience.

The rebrand involved extensive collaboration between Envato’s in-house creative teams and contributors from within the community. The new logo captures the essence of Envato and its creative spirit, incorporating the ‘Creative Spark’—a symbol of dynamism and energy—and the ‘Dynamic Dot,’ representing each individual’s unique contribution.

Speaking on the new logo, Arlyn Panopio, head of brand and creative at Envato, explained, “We had several designers sketching out logo directions over many rounds to craft our perfect mark. We wanted our logo to stand the test of time, and finding a design that felt current yet timeless was an iterative process of striking the right balance.”

Additionally, Envato adopted a brighter and bolder colour palette to reinvigorate the brand, infusing its visual identity with fresh, vibrant energy. The brand also revamped its sonic branding to better reflect its dynamic spirit.

Hichame Assi, CEO of Envato, said, “Bold, vibrant, and reflective of Envato’s spirit, this rebrand symbolises our evolution and unwavering commitment to supporting creatives. We’re excited to continue empowering our creative community and hope the refreshed Envato will inspire them to make their mark on the world.”

As part of the rebrand, Envato has also launched a new website featuring a modernised UI and enhanced UX. The revamped site offers a seamless creative journey, from sparking ideas to discovering the perfect assets.

Meanwhile, it will keep the same creative subscription but introduce a new toolkit to help users produce high-quality designs. 

Envato’s rebrand marks a pivotal moment in its growth, coinciding with the recent completion of its acquisition by Shutterstock. This timing is symbolic, representing both a fresh start and a significant milestone in the brand’s ongoing evolution.

Noelle Kim, chief marketing officer at Envato, said, “Those who’ve been part of our journey know how much heart and passion exists in the creative community we have cultivated. We wanted to evolve our brand to capture the feeling we hope to evoke in our community every time they interact with our brand and product: a sense of energy and a drive to do things differently. And we collaborated with our platform contributors Milos Mitrovic for the logo design and K. Sparks for our sonic branding to bring this to life.” 

New York, USA — Shutterstock, a leading global creative platform for transformative brands and media companies, has announced that Shutterstock Studios, the company’s creative and production arm, is broadening its offering to include original documentary films and series.

Led by Aiden Darné, VP and global head of Shutterstock Studios, formerly a VICE Media executive, one of the first projects is a docuseries featuring Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time NASCAR champion and American professional racing driver. This docuseries was produced in partnership with Carvana, a Fortune 500 company that fosters an intuitive and convenient online car buying, selling, and financing experience.

The eight-part series, titled ‘Reinventing The Wheel,’ gives global viewers an all-access, behind-the-scenes look at Jimmie Johnson as he navigates his second INDYCAR season after an exceptional career in NASCAR racing.

Darné said, “We are so excited that our first entry into the high-demand world of documentary storytelling is in partnership with Carvana. It’s been amazing to capture the intimate moments of the career switch of Jimmie Johnson – one of the greatest race car drivers of all time.”

‘Reinventing The Wheel’ is just one of several shows that Shutterstock Studios currently has in production. A second show, titled, ‘The Money Shot’ follows celebrity photographer Miles Diggs, the man behind famous images like Rihanna’s pregnancy photos. Both ‘Reinventing the Wheel’ and ‘The Money Shot’ will be hitting TV and streaming services soon.

Shutterstock Studios has other shows in various stages of development and production like ‘Behind The Lens,” which chronicles Diana, Princess of Wales and the ‘History of Boy Bands’ – a unique look into the 90s biggest boy bands.

Jamie Elden, chief revenue officer at Shutterstock, said, “Since Shutterstock Studios’ inception in November 2020, the team has rapidly established itself as a key player in the industry, and as a premier end-to-end creative content solution partnering with some of the world’s biggest brands and companies like Amazon, ITV, BBC and Microsoft.”

He mentions that what’s unique to Shutterstock Studios is that their content is powered by one of the largest archival collections in the world, including exclusive access to the Condé Nast Collection, A+E Networks Archive, the LIFE Collection and more, enabling producers to create compelling content for all platforms and production mediums.

Meanwhile, Ryan Keeton, chief brand officer and co-founder of Carvana, commented, “We continue to be inspired by Jimmie’s commitment as he’s forged this new path in his racing career. Our team was excited to collaborate with such talented partners on the Reinventing the Wheel docuseries to bring such unique and exclusive access as Jimmie faces this exciting next chapter. Carvana has always stood for challenging the status quo and we see that same drive and passion in Jimmie.”

New York, USA – Global creative platform Shutterstock has announced the launch of new subsidiary Shutterstock.AI, which aims to offer computer vision and predictive performance solutions with the goal of enhancing creative performance. To mark the launch, it has also acquired three artificial intelligence (AI) platforms to boost the offering.

Said platforms are marketing platform Pattern89, content personalization platform Datasine, and image intelligence platform Shotzr. All of the companies have an aggregate cash consideration paid among them by Shutterstock amounting to US$35m.

Through the new offering, Shutterstock.AI will continue to rapidly develop its own predictive performance capabilities to help creatives and customers accomplish their goals by making more data-informed content decisions.

In addition, Shutterstock.AI will commercialize data assets within Shutterstock’s immense content library, which includes over 400 million images, videos, music tracks, and 3D models, as well as partner with innovative companies to grow their capabilities in computer vision and content insights to power the next generation of AI models.

Stan Pavlovsky, chief executive officer at Shutterstock, said the offering will help their customers globally solve the biggest creative challenge they have: discovering and selecting the right content that is relevant, and that resonates with audiences. He added that they want their customers to ‘create with confidence’ based on their content.

“To complement this, Shutterstock.AI will also help new customer segments accelerate the development of artificial intelligence, by unlocking the power of the data associated with our vast content library. From autonomous vehicles, to content moderation, to AI powered process automation, Shutterstock.AI’s high quality data and services will enable companies to develop the next generation of technologies,” Pavlovsky.

The company also stated that they see the future of creativity through the lens of performance, as the engine that will transform customers’ ideas into accomplishments.

“With the acquisition of these three creative AI companies, and the creation of Shutterstock.AI, Shutterstock is redefining what creativity means, and helping solve our customers’ problems by expertly navigating the availability of content. Looking ahead, Shutterstock.AI will develop predictive creative AI models, leveraging cutting edge technology to help customers make more informed content choices, providing more confidence about the performance of what they produce,” Shutterstock said in a press statement.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Printcious, an online do-it-yourself (DIY) printing platform, has partnered with stock photography provider Shutterstock to enable customizable gifts for the upcoming Lunar New Year and Valentine’s Day.

Printcious will be adding 25,000 of Shutterstock images and designs to their existing design multimedia collection. Customers can use these extensive images and designs as templates to create DIY personalized gifts such as throw pillows, t-shirts, mugs, canvasses, puzzles, mouse pads, tote bags, to name a few.

Printcious’ customers may order gifts in these three ways:

  • Design Your Own: Add your own design/photo and text to be printed as-is.
  • Template-based: For users who are new to designing, they can use existing template designs and just add personalized photo or text in the designated areas.
  • Ready Design: Designs that do not require customization, where customers can just choose to print the selected design on specific merchandise. Printcious’ online design tool remains available should customers want to add personalized gifts further.

Both corporate clients and personalized merchandise clients may order in bulk. 

Sydney, Australia – This is probably what one would call a “plot twist” – everyone’s beloved stock images and videos collection Shutterstock has now extended its brand to launch an end-to-end custom creative services for brands called Shutterstock Studios. 

The new creative division will offer brands custom, high-quality content matched with production tools and services at scale. Services will provide data-driven content strategy, full-scale production, brand storytelling, and amplification. 

With Shutterstock’s network boasting of over 1 million contributors in photography, cinematography, and production across 100 countries, the new studios aims to provide custom content across various creative storytelling measures, from brand storytelling, full production services, creative ideation, storyboarding, script writing as well as talent booking, influencer management and post-production.

“The launch of Shutterstock Studios is a milestone moment for our company. Through our talented global network of photographers, cinematographers, and contributors who provide an unending catalog of premium content, we’re able to build this global production studio and expand our services,” said Shutterstock CRO Jamie Elden.

Alongside the service launch, Shutterstock also announced the service’s head of global production, Aiden Darné. Prior to his new appointment, he was senior vice president of production at Vice Media Group and vice president of production at Viacom, a mass media conglomerate.

“I’m thrilled to join Shutterstock at such an exciting time for the company, since now more than ever, there is huge demand for a global production infrastructure that’s underpinned by a hyper local point of view. Shutterstock Studios is uniquely positioned to succeed within this marketplace with it’s vast and varying global network of contributors and creatives. It has a bright future and I’m honored to have been brought on to build out Shutterstock’s best in class production offering,” Darné said. 

Elden commented, “Under the helm of our new Head of Global Production, Aiden Darné, we’re looking forward to creating innovative content to all of our valued partners, brands, agencies and entertainment industry.”

Sydney, Australia – Global stock photography and footage provider Shutterstock has announced  the addition of “Editorial Video” in their growing stock library, with more than 250,000 user-generated content (UGC), live and archive footage from various subjects, ranging from entertainment, sports, current affairs, and fashion.

With partners such as Critical Past, Celebrity Footage, ViralHog, epa and London Entertainment, the Editorial Video library ensures a much more diverse portfolio for Shutterstock, which has now over 50 million photos in stock.

“We’ve long valued our partnership with Shutterstock and being able to contribute our photographs to their amazing, robust catalogue of high-quality photos in their database,” said Julia R. Arévalo, president and CEO of epa.

Unlike previous offerings from Shutterstock, the newest service has simplified its licensing service, which allows users to avail license of stock footage per clip, as opposed to the conventional per second or format licensing.

With forecasts stating that by 2022, 82% of consumer digital consumption will be more focused on online videos, the company hopes to use this medium to expand consumer demand.

“With the expansion of our editorial content into video, we will continue to service our partners across global networks, production companies and studios. We continuously strive to give our customers around the world more flexibility in how they access best-in-class content to create stunning, high-quality creative that will propel their stories forward in unique and fresh ways,” Candice Murray, VP Editorial at Shutterstock stated.