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| Image News #4 June 12, 2004 Haim's Florida Challenge
Tell us about your background. I graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in CA with a degree focused on commercial photography. After graduation I immediately moved to New York City and then Milano, Italy where I started my fashion and beauty photography career. After returning to New York I continued shooting, while also starting an award winning Internet company called Muffin-Head. I sold Muffin-Head to a large advertising agency and became their Chief Creative Officer. I then left to start a21 with a group of business associates and friends. I now have the incredible opportunity at a21 to leverage my Internet experience, along with my photography background, to create another successful company. Explain a21's strategy in acquiring SuperStock? Originally a21 was going to build a stock agency from the ground up. After looking at the landscape and the industry as a whole, we reassessed our strategy and concluded that acquiring a company with a solid foundation and a critical mass of images and customers would allow us to get to where we needed to be much faster. SuperStock was the perfect launching pad for us. Can a medium size company like SuperStock continue in a market so dominated by Getty? Absolutely! While we fully respect what Getty and also Corbis have accomplished, we also understand customers, and artists, want and need choices. We look forward to being one of their solutions. What is your content development strategy at this time and how do partners like Stockbyte fit into it? We are looking at a clear two-fold strategy. One path is through additional acquisitions of companies with compelling content and a solid customer base, and the other is organic growth through our own creation and licensing of new images. It's also very important for us to partner with good companies like Stockbyte who bring quality, customer service and vision to their collections. a21 and SuperStock are all about excellence, so it would be natural for us to partner with like minded companies and artists. You've been working on the positioning of the Superstock brand. How differently will clients view the company in six months? I thought the acquisition part of the deal was the hard part until I started leading the charge on the re-positioning of the company and brand. Seriously though, we are pushing hard and working fast to "Build it Forward". We have already started seeing our new ads and marketing get traction in the marketplace by the level of sales, website traffic and inbound calls coming to us. There is still a lot to do, but we're confident and focused on getting it all completed. With our soon to be completed relaunch of www.superstock.com featuring a whole new user experience, we're certain that both our customers and artists will view us in a new light. SuperStock is a great brand. We're simply looking to make it greater. Why Jacksonville? SuperStock was originally founded in New York City in 1973. We relocated to Jacksonville in 1993 and built an impressive and very high tech facility. With the Internet as our distribution tool, there was really no need to stay in a high cost city. Jacksonville is a great place to work and live, especially since it's right on the ocean. We're going to keep Jacksonville as our hub, but we'll make sure to have sales and creative offices in key cities, both here and abroad. Are more acquisitions on the cards? Yes. As I mentioned prior, we're looking at both acquisitions and organic growth. The acquisitions though will need to be highly targeted and focused, while making sure they fit into our core strategy. This industry has seen some acquisitions work out nicely, but it has also been privy to watching what doesn't work. Fortunately, we have a road map and team in place to do things right. Do you ever get to take pictures any more? Not as much as I would like, but I am blessed with two beautiful children and I can still shoot a pretty nice looking holiday card to send out to family and friends. What's the best picture you ever took? I used to be a fashion and beauty photographer and I had access to some of the most beautiful models and amazing designers. There are several amazing images that I was able to capture backstage at the collections, both in the US and Europe, during the whole "Supermodel" era. What do you think of Danish beer? One thing I realized shortly after arriving here in Denmark is that the US just hasn't quite yet figured out how to make good beer. It's always a pleasure to taste something nice, especially here in beautiful Copenhagen. |
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