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October 27, 2005

Media Bakery Represents Index Stock Imagery

http://www.mactribe.com/articlenews.asp?ArticleId=3

Chad Newell is the CEO of the most entertaining stock media resource on the Internet – Media Bakery. It blends royalty free imagery, footage, flash and audio to “kick butt” and provide a fun user experience.

MacTribe - Media Bakery has stepped into the forefront this year. How did it get there?

Chad - A little over a year ago, we really thought hard about how to capitalize on the market according to our size. As necessity is the mother of invention, we had to really think about making an impact to visiting users, so we decided to build on our creative name. An initiative was launched to re-work our website design, having the mandate to speak to the design community. It was important to communicate to our target market. I feel the current design and functionality really speak to our demographic. Literally designed as an oven, our home and sub pages invite users to navigate amongst our product offerings and review new products with style and ease. The home page is fun and inviting to browse.

MacTribe - Please describe your variety of content, including audio and footage.

Chad - Media Bakery was conceptualized as the convergence of many media types. Having one brand to market which can easily wrap around our entire product offering makes it a powerful user experience and reinforces the wide variety of products we offer. Footage, Flash and Audio are all offerings that make Media Bakery a one stop shop for any campaign medium that a Creative might be developing. Although imagery is our bread and butter, these other offerings provide the diverse posture that Media Bakery was founded upon.

MacTribe - What is your custom assignment business model?

Chad - Finding the right image at the right price is not always a luxury the creative can afford. This is a great idea that we have made available to clients on really tight budgets who can’t find what they are looking for in RF. Since the bakery is an all Royalty Free resource, we offer a custom shoot from supplied story board concepts that will deliver a non-exclusive image for about the same price as an Ultra High Res file. If the client needs multiple shots the pricing slightly scales down. Typical shoots yield several images from one setup. The image(s) are then retained for Media Bakery to use in its own library, making it available to others for an RF license.

MacTribe - How successful is your visual search technology?

Chad - I can truly say it kicks butt. I’ve worn every hat in this business, from researcher to buyer, and hands down this technology is the best I have seen. Not only can you upload your own comp, or an image you might have found at another site, you get accurate, truthful visual matches based on intelligent feedback. It works best if you already know in your mind’s eye what image you’d like to find. The user experience is so simple to use, it really feels like magic after a couple of uses.

MacTribe - How did you get into the business?

Chad - In 1996 I was looking for a change from theatrical distribution sales at New Line Cinema. I jumped at the chance to move out of Hollywood and up to San Francisco to help start what was then the Image Bank footage and film office. The ability to stay in the creative visual industry in Northern California was a dream-come-true. There I starting shooting projects myself – a sidetrack that I was really thankful to experience. I found a new respect for the production process. My next venture in stock was back down to Southern California at Adventure Photo and Film. There I became Managing Director and ran the film division. Eventually the goal was to help posture the agency for the Globalstate acquisition. Back then, GlobalState had sister brands for their footage and audio offerings. There were three brands in total: Imagestate, VideoState and MusicState. I joined the company’s footage brand VideoState as an Operating Officer. After the company moved to New York and changed directions by consolidating their content offerings, I decided to stay behind and start the Bakery! I saw a real need for a consolidated RF stock content offer on one brand platform.

MacTribe - What are the challenges you face in this business?

Chad - What’s great about Media Bakery is that we are small. This is considered an attribute because it allows us to really cherish each and every customer as they directly affect our bottom line. The challenge for any small company in this business is to capture more market share in a very fragmented marketplace. Suffice it to say, with so much competition, we really work hard to retain our customers. I really want to see Media Bakery continue its charm as we see substantial growth year to year.

MacTribe - With your meteoric rise, what are your future plans?

Chad - Media Bakery is where it is because our customers enjoy the whole experience: the site design, the customer service and the whole cheeky ride that our marketable name lends itself so well to. With a little luck and hard work we will stay in the front of our customer’s minds.

(Article by Pat Hunt, as published in MacTribe, www.mactribe.com.)

Posted by Pat at October 27, 2005 04:49 PM

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