Leaders of the country’s creative industries – including advertising and media – see huge opportunities in getting local access to Getty Images, the world’s leading creator and distributor of still imagery, footage, and multi-media products, through GetCre8ive Corporation.

Prior to its partnership with GetCre8tive, Getty Images services its Philippine customers out of its Singapore regional office. However, after recognizing the increasing dynamism in the Philippines’ creative industries and the availability of world-class creative talent, Getty Images said it decided to establish a local presence to fulfil its customers’ needs readily and render 24/7 support to the country’s dynamic advertising, graphic design, and other creative industries.

“There’s plenty of creative talent in this part of the world. We believe there is more potential to be unlocked if we can just set our foot deeper in,” said Rupert Harrow, Getty Images’ Senior Sales Director, in a meeting with the country’s top advertising and media industry leaders in Makati City.

Getty Images serves as a marketplace for creative and media professionals as well as business customers in more than 100 countries to discover, purchase and manage images and other digital content such as video footages and music.

In 2009 alone, Mr. Harrow said Getty Images has sold 22 million images and currently uploads fresh images on its site at the rate of 4,000 a day. It also offers 50,000 hours of footages and 70 million archival images that date back to the 1860s. Getty Images has 150 partner organizations worldwide, including the likes of Time Life (which added 450,000 images to the Getty Images collection), Warner Brothers, Oscar Awards, Vanity Fair, and 50 sports organizing bodies such as FIFA World Cup and PGA Tournaments.

While Getty Images has a “significant collection of images, footages and music,” Mr. Harrow acknowledged that these heavily cater to a North American audience and there is still plenty of room for local content. This is an area where having a foot in Philippine soil through GetCre8ive is beneficial, the industry leaders said.

“Getty Images could help educate the local photography sector on the opportunities available to get global exposure by being included in the Getty Images collection. Getty Images could also help strengthen the sector so they don’t get threatened by plagiarism and intellectual property rights infringements,” said Rick Hawthorne, Chairman of the Advertising Suppliers Association of the Philippines (ASAP) and Managing Director for Industry Relations of Roadrunner Network, Inc.

With more than eight million Filipinos worldwide, there is also demand for images and footage that could help the local print and broadcast media put out international news for a local audience. “For example, if Filipinos were among the victims of a bombing in Iraq, we would need those images for our local media,” said Fredrick M Allegre, corporate secretary of the United Print Media Group (UPMG) and Vice President for Corporate Affairs of BusinessMirror. This could be easily met as Getty Images sends out thousands of photographers on assignment all over the world, Harrow said.