High gloss, sexually charged images bombard us at every turn. Walking in the subway, riding the bus, surfing online—no matter where we turn, photography marketing is there to provoke, amaze, and shock us out of our hum drum travels.

For a recent marketing campaign in Taipei, Taiwan, a sex-ed nonprofit decided to use the image of a nun in one of their photo marketing campaigns. The caption under the photo read, in English and Chinese, “I don’t use them, but I know what they are.” The outcry was mixed. Many people thought the ads were funny and informative, two good things in an age where unprotected sex is spreading AIDS around the world at an alarming rate. Other thought that the ads were in bad taste, and one Catholic group in particular objected to the use of a nun.

Due to the protests of this Catholic group, the ads were pulled from the subways and bus stops where they were running, but it is arguable that this controversy did more to promote the cause of the nonprofit than the ads themselves, as every major Chinese and English language newspaper in the city ran the story as a short news article, complete with their personal take or spin.

When all is said and done, successful photo marketing can be boiled down to two different characteristics. Either A: it is seen by a wide amount of people, or B: it is seen by a smaller group but it exciting enough to get people talking.

For the smaller business, option A may be out of the question. Most of us cannot afford even a 10 second spot on the giant screen in Times Square, and the subway systems around the world are well aware of the lucrative nature of their advertising space.

But with a sexy, provocative photo, you can do much more with just a few low cost locations than many big companies do with all the resources and prime advertising spots in the world.

In fact, one such prime location is sitting right in front of you—the Internet. Mostly still untapped by resourceful entrepreneurs, the Internet remains the most valuable commodity for photography marketing.

American Apparel, and LA based clothing company, knew exactly that when it began flooding the Internet with photographs of young people, sometimes employees of the company, wearing American Apparel clothes. The photographs were cheap to make, as they were mostly taken by the owner of the company, and the combination of amateur models and the high quality, sweatshop free clothing was enough to have people talking from SF to NYC and all the way to London.

By using a search-based advertising system, your photography marketing could be placed directly where it will be seen by the largest possible amount of potential customers. Combining that with a controversial or exciting photo set is enough to market your business beyond the boundaries of your advertising budget, and place you on a plane with the big boys.

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