How to Build an Authentic Visual Identity in the Age of AI

Stuart Cohen: The cost of licensing content, whether it be video or stills, has gotten a lot lower in recent years. And it's made it easier for any company, whether it's a big company or small company or a side gig. You know, you're doing it from your house. It's pretty easy to license content.

Bailey Gunnell: Welcome back to Content Logistics. I'm your host, Bailey Gunnell. And today we're diving into one of the most fascinating shifts happening in marketing right now. The intersection between authentic storytelling and AI. To help us unpack that, I'm joined by Stuart Cohen, an award winning photographer, director, and the owner of Superstock, a boutique production company that's helped brands tell their stories through images and videos for decades. Stuart spent his career behind a camera, capturing authentic human stories for major brands, and now he's at the forefront of navigating how AI and visual technology are reshaping creativity. We'll talk about what real means in today's content and how marketers can build a visual identity that actually connects and why the best storytellers will still prevail.

Bailey Gunnell: Let's get into it. Hey, Stuart. So glad to have you on the show today. Super excited for this, Bailey.

Stuart Cohen: I'm thrilled to be here and I wish my office looked as good as your office.

Bailey Gunnell: That means a lot coming from you with your background. I gotta say though, I love the, the brick you've got. That is very funny.

Stuart Cohen: It's real. It's real. Yeah.

Bailey Gunnell: Wow. Yeah, we don't have a lot of that where I'm from, at least.

Stuart Cohen: Well, this is like it was the first loft conversion in Dallas, Texas, so way back. So I think it was an abandoned building and this guy came in and redid it all and it was still early days, so the neighborhood was kind of sketch, I will say, kind of still is a little sketch.

Bailey Gunnell: So still a little bit. But at least you got a cool building out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where I'm at right now, I feel like it's just a lot of builder grade style stuff. So we gotta add character. I gotta add shelves and stuff.

Stuart Cohen: They look good. And then you got your little string lights, you know, it's, it's cool.

Bailey Gunnell: Thanks.

Stuart Cohen: Show somebody put some thought into it.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, gotta show my personality. I got lots of hidden things about my life if anyone wanted.

Stuart Cohen: Oh, do you? Oh, uh, so there are little Easter eggs everywhere.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, uh, little Easter eggs. You'll, you'll learn a lot about me if you try and read through this.

Stuart Cohen: Okay, now, now I want take a screen grab and zoom around.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Could Be embarrassing. Well, I am so excited for today's conversation. We got to talk previously a little bit about your history, but I think this will be really insightful to the audience just to learn about visual storytelling and the experiences that you've had. Now, you've been spending a lot of your career behind a camera, telling stories for major brands, and I'd love to hear just how has that storytelling changed in just the last decade?

Stuart Cohen: Well, that's a big question to ask. First up, uh, I will say that storytelling in the last decade has become more authentic, I think, less staged. I mean, people strive to see what's real, and I think technology has allowed us to do that a little bit because cameras have become more nimble and you could move cameras easier. And I think one big turning point also was Covid, where people were recording stuff on their phones. And I think people like the authenticity and the realness of it. And I think that's kind of lingered on, but now we're trying to produce things that still look authentic. So that's the challenge, you know.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Um, and you think even in the last few years, AI coming in. I think people really crave authenticity more than ever. That's maybe that's my take.

Stuart Cohen: You know, it's interesting you say that. I mean, it. We haven't seen that backlash yet, but I feel it already, like, and just say our still photography for a minute, you know, like, when we set up a shot, it's. We do our best for it to be, like, perfect. Right?

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: And then, of course, Photoshop comes in, and then people say, oh, well, I could just remove that, or I could do that and I'll move that and da, da, da. And nearly to the point, like, we just did a job a couple months ago, and they retouch pictures beyond what's necessary, I think, uh, okay. You know, I thought the files look great coming out of the camera, but then when they got done with retouching, honestly, it didn't look real to me. And I think what we're going to start to see, especially in the still world, it's like, no, let it leave it. Let it make. Let it look real. You know, like, maybe, you know, their plate is not perfect on the table. Maybe there's some leftover food or maybe there's a toy on the floor. I don't know. But I do think. I think it's going to help. Granted, I'm sure, AI, you're going to be able to say something, you know, make the room a little messy. I mean, I'm sure that'll come too. But I do feel like people are going to strive for authenticity really quickly because I think the. I don't think the tsunami tidal wave of AI uh, has really washed over us yet.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. That's really interesting. I know. A couple years back, I read this article about how some actors are keeping, like, crooked teeth or these just little imperfections that show they're real. Like, doesn't all need to be plastic surgery.

Stuart Cohen: I think Invisalign's doing okay, though. You ever wonder, you look at actors, you look at their teeth. It's like, how come all their teeth are perfect?

Bailey Gunnell: Yep.

Stuart Cohen: But you're right. I think we're gonna want to somehow believe that something is authentic. And now, I don't know about you. I'm starting to even. Like, I watched a movie yesterday and I'm thinking, is that shot AI? Like, just because I see some AI, I see so much of it now. And it's like. And a lot of times it's not, you know, but it's like, uh. And I think we're gonna see movies that are made out of AI all the way through. I really do think that if the story is great, I don't think you're gonna care. Like, we watch animated movies and we don't care that they're animated. I don't know. You know, I do believe story is king.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: Unless something's just hideous looking, but, you know.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. We want things to look pretty still.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah. Yeah.

Bailey Gunnell: What does that mean for a company like yours where you're production driven and things are shifting?

Stuart Cohen: I will use the word frightening.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: And I'll use it with a smile. I've had a great career, and I've seen a lot of changes throughout my years doing this. And I do feel like. I know, uh, we always say it's different this time. Maybe it's not different. You know, everything seems bigger at the beginning, but I've been hammering into my head already ways to digest it and ways to use it and ways to go forward. And I think, yes, things will change. And I think the people that are, you know, 25 years old today starting their careers, they'll never know what was before.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: So, you know, it'll just be the way it is. I think it's going to help us potentially, like, on some difficult situations that we have to film. I mean, make it easier because we'll be able to use AI to fill in the blanks, so to speak. So I don't know. I mean, it's going to be. It's going to be different.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. It's crazy, all the stuff that's going on. I saw this really cool experiment that a video editor did where he filmed everything himself. He edited it all, and then he used AI to make a second comparison video, and they both looked amazing.

Stuart Cohen: Wow.

Bailey Gunnell: But I think that I'll have to send it to you afterwards. It was really, really cool. But I think it goes back to that storytelling like you were explaining. Like. Like he is a master of his craft, and he knew how to prompt engineer to get the shots that he wanted. That I don't think just anybody going in there would be able to do the same thing that he was doing.

Stuart Cohen: Right. And I think the prompt engineer thing is it's going to get easier. It really will. It'll just be your normal language. And there's already something. And I'm. I'm trying to remember the name of the app, but it's something like prompt hero or something that helps you. And then there's something that you could take a visual and you could throw it in to this app and it'll give you all the prompts. So if you want something to look like this, you know, you take a picture that you found, pop it in there and it'll give you the prompts. It'll get you close. I think the prompt engineer. It's early days with Photoshop. If you're a Photoshop expert, you, yours is going to look better than anybody's. And I think as time goes on, of course it's going to become easier and easier for everybody.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Why do you think people are craving authenticity so much now? I know we talked about COVID but what are your thoughts on that?

Stuart Cohen: I just think people. People don't believe so much anymore, and it's just because we've been fed so much material and information from bots, and we get phone calls from bots, and I mean, we just got a phone call from a bot here at the studio saying they were coming to turn off the power. And I'm like, everything's paid. But then what do I do? Of course I go to make sure everything's paid, and then I read something saying, yes, they're trying to get your information. It's a scam. So I think people want authenticity just because we are being fed a lot of fake, fake, Whether it's fake news, fake media, fake, you know, fake advertising, like, what do we believe? So here's a good thing. In the advertising world, which is kind of where I live, how can I sell something to you, Bailey? And. And for you to think, oh, that's really cool. No, it's real. I believe it. Because there's a lot of stuff out there. That's right.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: I think people crave it because people just want to have a connection.

Bailey Gunnell: There's a lot of stuff out there that I think forces us to question and just be skeptical of things. So having people's real faces and feel like they're filming it in their car or whatever you're doing to make it feel less produced can help connect, you know?

Stuart Cohen: You know how you could do, like, you could take a couple of pictures of yourself and put it into some headshot maker and it'll make an AI. Yeah, people are doing that and putting those on LinkedIn. And I read something from somebody on LinkedIn saying, you, uh, know you want to use your real pictures because that's just flat out lying. But I'm sure there are people that are flat out lying. And does it really matter? You know, I mean, I don't know.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: I think integrity, I think personal integrity is going to go a long way in the future. I think it always has. But I do think that, you know, if we have a business relationship and there's integrity on both sides, we're going to maintain that relationship, you know?

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. That's interesting about the headshots. That's a lot of people like doing those things. It could be a fun exercise. But if it looks like you, I don't know if it's really misleading.

Stuart Cohen: I know, I know. So I did see something that you could upload your photo and it makes it like, um, you know, they have those illustrations. I think it's in the Wall Street Journal of the author, you know, and it. So it's like a line drawing of you. And I thought that would be cool to do, but I can never, I can never get the app to work properly. One day I'll try it.

Bailey Gunnell: Technology man.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah.

Bailey Gunnell: So lots of chat about just where things have gone and how AI is changing things. But with all of those changes, people still need visual imagery or videos more and more. More and more. Yeah, you, you need it for almost every type of advertising or marketing that you're trying to do. Where can people go to to get this kind of content?

Stuart Cohen: If you're looking to license content, there are plenty of options out there. We have, uh, we have a company called Superstock that we license content, videos and stills. You know, it's like the Getty Images type thing, but smaller. And I Think when you're looking at any of those sites, they now, at least currently everybody identifies if something's AI and you could look up the metadata to see if it's real and stuff like that. So I think that's important. And yeah, I think you could license stuff or you could still get stuff content shot. And there are a lot of great outfits, uh, out there that are shooting original content. Of course we're one of them, the Stuart Chrome pictures. But there's cameras have made it that you could go out and shoot your own stuff and it looks authentic. You know, you could use your phone. And some people were saying, you know, well, if you use your phone it seems more authentic, but it could be just as fake on your phone as it is on a big camera. So we still shoot on big cameras just because they're higher resolution and it could be used a lot of different ways. Obviously when you're getting content created today, you probably want to make sure that you get it in the 16 by 9 as well as 9 by 16, which is the vertical format. So you could, what do they say now? Protect the scroll. You want it to use on TikTok and Instagram stories and YouTube shorts. So that's one thing to really be aware of if you're getting content made to make sure you get it vertically and horizontally. And I think having a concept is a great idea. It usually helps it, it really propels the, the idea further. Be prepared when you're going into a shoot with everything you want to accomplish plus some things if some. Because sometimes things don't work. And um, depending on who's acting in your video, are they paid or is it not paid? But you want to be respectful of people's times too. So if something's not working like we a, uh, lot of times and that's where a good director comes in. And that's again what's over here. But it's our job as directors to make sure that the message is coming across authentically and in a truthful fashion and in a really visually pleasing fashion. When you're selling a product, what advice

Bailey Gunnell: do you have to people as uh, they're trying to figure out what their visual identity is going to be before they're starting to put stuff on their website. How can they go through because there's so many directions they could go.

Stuart Cohen: You are right. You are right. And that's, I mean granted, in the old days companies would hire a branding agency just to come up with the look and feel color palette, logo so on and so forth today, I think you could create a lot. You could create a look and feel, a mood board on your own. I think Pinterest is a great solution to really start boards of maybe color palettes or visual identities that you like or. And granted, you have to talk about what your company or what your business does, and you have to have a good understanding of. Of what's great about it and what makes you different, what makes you stand out and. Yeah, and I think it's just. It has to come into your head. And I know a lot of companies rebrand regularly, and we had a big conversation this weekend about it, but with a bunch of people, and we were talking about how these companies sometimes don't give it enough time between rebranding. Yeah, because what we don't understand is it takes the public a long time to understand who a company is. And a business owner, of course, may brand their company and in 18 months say, oh, I'm sick of that, I'm going to change it. But quite honestly, a lot of people may have never seen it yet. So you need to really evolve your brand identity as opposed to have a evolution. I think evolution versus a revolution on your branding. And continually. It should be continually evolving depending on what's going on in your business and in your brain and what's going on in society. People react to different things. I know today if you have AI in a title, people are going to look at it, which I can't wait till that's gone.

Bailey Gunnell: It can be so confusing for customers, though, when they're like, wait, who is this company? I don't recognize who they are. And I'm not sure if that's quite as common with a lot of B2B companies, but it does happen, and it can be really a jarring experience.

Stuart Cohen: Well, I think it does happen, actually. Okay, so this morning at our company meeting, we were talking about. Because I read about it in this weekend, the whole cracker barrel fiasco. And I don't know if you're up to date on that, but, you know, they wanted. Their demographic was changing and they were tasked with changing it. And new CEO was tasked with making the changes, brought in all these agencies, branding agencies, and, you know, da, da, da, da, uh, and they changed it. And of course, there was a big outcry against the new look. And one thing that was in this article is Talking about how 35% of the people complaining about it were actually bots. So they.

Bailey Gunnell: Oh, my goodness.

Stuart Cohen: I think bots reacted to something and in the end they Reverted back to what they had been. And we were, uh, sitting around talking about it and we're thinking, well, why did they revert back to it? That's what they wanted to get away from. And sometimes it just takes a minute to say no, this is our new logo. It's cleaner. It's 20, 25. You know, the last logo was made in 2000 or something. So it's interesting. It's interesting the voyages that companies go through.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: And I think that's what to your point, why you need to really know where you want to go and be okay, sticking with one message, you know, if you're going to tell a story, stick to your story, you know.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. One of my, like, general just good rules of thumbs is a squint test. If you squint your eyes, can you tell that it's the same brand? So if you look at brands like Coca Cola or Pepsi, they have changed their logos so many times, but it's relatively similar over the years.

Stuart Cohen: That's, that's really good point. I'm, uh, gonna, I'm gonna use that. I'm gonna use that. I will. Yeah.

Bailey Gunnell: It's helpful. Quick and easy going. Too crazy.

Stuart Cohen: I got it named from Bailey.

Bailey Gunnell: So how should a company determine what the next step is for their visual identity? Like if they should hire someone to come out maybe for a photo shoot, or if they can get the images they need through licensing, or should they go and use AI to try and create these things? Like what types of things should they pay attention to?

Stuart Cohen: Well, uh, those are all really good questions, and I think a little of a little of all of it. If you want to mess around with AI, I mean, by all means, kind of go in there and start messing around, seeing if you could get what you have in your head onto paper. I'm a believer of Pinterest to kind of come up with a look and feel something. You know, it's funny, I, I have a look and, and a, A feel that's always felt good to me. That early, early in my career I worked with, I guess, a brand strategist. And, and thinking back, it hasn't changed much. I mean, what my visual. What is it? Visual style or my visual, um.

Bailey Gunnell: Identity.

Stuart Cohen: Identity or what I love?

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Stuart Cohen: How we do it has changed. The details have changed regularly. But in the, in the end, it's still, you know, like, say for me, everything I did, which is changing now, again, it was all about people. We'd always film and photograph people, and it was always on location. Because I really like being in somebody's environment or in a different environment. And we traveled a lot, so I like doing it in exotic locations, of course. But some of that is now changing today. And I just made a proposal for a client about, you know, shooting on one of these. They're called a volume wall, like they did the Mandalorian on, which it's like you're shooting in on the location. It's a 270 degree plus the top, so it emits light. And you wouldn't know that you're not on the Brooklyn Bridge or in a cornfield in Kansas. And I mean, whoa. And the first time I saw it. Now this has been a couple years. It's been out for a couple years. But I felt this emptiness inside thinking, oh, I mean my whole career has been about traveling and going to these places, finding these places that were magic, that were special. I still think there's going to be some of that, but I think for a lot of it, uh, like say, you know, we had you for a day. We probably couldn't have you for five days because you're famous and your time is valuable. But so you could. I could film you on one of these stages in, on in five different countries and we could do it in a day. Well, I mean, it makes sense, right? It totally makes sense for a commercial. It's like, oh, here's Bailey walking through London there.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: In India today, you know, and it looks real and it feels real. And I think the fact that it's not a green screen anymore and that. So what you're going to need is back plates so you know the backgrounds to be what you want them to be. And the challenge in doing it that way I think is yes, you could go back after the fact and change them, but for the most part you need to decide it up front. Whereas like when you were shooting something on a green screen, you were building the background after the fact. So there was a lot of work put in post production. This you need to previsit because to think I, uh, want you walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. I need to get either shoot that background plate to have it the way I like it with the right light, or I need to find it somewhere, maybe license it and that way we could project it behind you so when you're walking it looks exactly like you're there. So we could match the light and that kind of thing so it blends perfectly. And where it also the one thing that I will feel great about is like say we wanted to film somebody jumping off a building, whatever, at sunset. So to do it in real life, I mean, it's a big shot. You probably have one shot a night, you know, because then the sun's gone. So with this, it could be sunset for 10 hours. So that's good. Wow, that's. That, that's money saver. And for the film biz, I think it's going to save a lot, a lot of money. And a challenge to everybody listening. Hey, watch any scene that you see tonight on TV or anywhere, wherever you're looking, of people talking in a car, driving. None of that's real. It hasn't been real for years. But I mean, some of it is better than others. But sometimes you could tell, like if you're watching an old movie how bad it is. You know, they're actually in a studio and they're shaking the car and there's just a. But today, I mean, it's, it looks real, but yeah, they're, they're, uh, in a studio. It's just simplicity and speed and authenticity. Actually, it looks real. It looks great. So anyway, so I do think the future holds some really amazing production tricks that will keep us entertained forever for years to come.

Bailey Gunnell: That's amazing. Those. That technology blows my mind.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah, no, it's crazy.

Bailey Gunnell: Wow. So for people who aren't familiar with licensing, what is that? Like, what should people look for when they're licensing? What are the costs involved, things like that.

Stuart Cohen: Oh, boy, that's a whole can of worms. Okay, well, uh, I'll keep it quick and top level. There are all sorts of licenses one could do. Say you were looking for a picture of a little girl walking her dog in the rain. So you do your search, whether it's a Google search or you go on superstock.com or you go on gettyimages.com and you find the options out there of a little girl walking in the rain, walking her dog in the rain. And so then you have your screen full of, say there's five to choose from and they all have prices associated with them. And so there's a few different things. In the licensing world, there was something called rm, which is rights managed, which is historically a little more expensive, or there's rf, meaning royalty free. The rights managed is you're buying that usage. So say you wanted it for a greeting card and you don't want anyone else to be able to use it. Well, you're paying for that. So you could pay the rights managed fee and nobody else could use it for what you're using it for, for X amount of time, however long you negotiate, that will be a little more expensive than if you buy a similar image. But it's royalty free. So if it's royalty free, that means it's just like you could use it for whatever you want, so could anybody else. So you know, your competitor down the street might find it also and choose to use it. And there'll be no. That is just the way it is. And when royalty free came out, which is, uh, I don't know what year 2010 ish. I think 2005. 10 people thought companies would care if other companies use the same picture. But it turned out that I don't know how much they really cared. And then the whole proliferation of there's a lot of content out there now. Chances are you're, I mean it's pretty rare that somebody will pick the same photograph of, you know, this.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: Girl walking her dog. So rights managed versus royalty free. Usually a little price difference. The one thing, if you are licensing something with a person in it, I would make sure that it had a valid model release with it so that person cannot come back and sue you. Because you can't just go out on the street and photograph a little kid walking her dog and put it on an ad. Normally it would have to be something produced or at least something where the child's parents signed a model release or anyone over 18 obviously signed their own model release. Model releases are important to make sure you have the rights to use it. And if you work with a company, whether it is a Getty or a Super Stock or Shutterstock, I mean they'll, they could help you through that. And we have account execs that could help you, that could help you do your search and that could help you with any questions like that. And then moving on from there, like you could find pictures on things like Unsplash, which is a free site. So people just upload their pictures to Unsplash, but you don't know the providence of them. So like if you wanted to use it for your book report for school, yeah, great. You know, nobody's going to say boo. But if you're using it for your company's website and you don't know if it was taken, you don't know if there's any legal rights behind the owner. You don't even know who owns the picture. So yeah, you probably want to stay away from that because you don't want to have, uh, to deal with it downstream with lawyers. So I mean, I'm a believer of it's kind of make sure you have the right to use whatever you're going to use. And there are people out there, uh, and we help, we. Anyone could just. By the way, anyone who has a question could always email me, which you'll share my info. But yeah, there's some nuances to it. And the truth is, I think the cost of licensing content, whether it be video or stills, has gotten a lot lower in recent years. And it's made it easier for any company, whether it's a big company or small company or a side gig. You know, you're doing it from your house. It's pretty easy to license content.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: And it saves you a lot of money. Better than going out and shooting it.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. I'm always amazed when I hop on those sites. You can find almost anything you're looking for.

Stuart Cohen: There is anything. And sometimes, like if you can't find it, depending on how hard it is to source, you could call us and we'll shoot it for you. Believe in that.

Bailey Gunnell: How about that? Okay. We'll definitely add your info.

Stuart Cohen: Unless it's like some crazy, you know, request, so you never know.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. That's amazing. So, uh, are there any common misconceptions that you hear from people about stock photography or licensed visuals?

Stuart Cohen: Well, a lot of people think that they're free. And the truth is you're using somebody's intellectual property to, in a business sense, to. For your company. So in that sense, you know, you need to pay a fair license, like I said. I mean, if you're going to use something in a book report or for a presentation, I mean, there are all sorts of subscriptions that every company has too, that you could just download anything and for whatever cost, you know, a minimal cost. And a lot of companies just have big appetites because they have. They might have, you know, 30 people creating decks for meetings every day and they just want, you know, I'm going to get a subscription, I'm going to pay $50 a month and my team could download whatever they want. And I think that's great too, because I do think visual. I look, I think visuals tell stories.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: And I think visuals are great. And decks. I think visuals. I mean, I'm, uh, obviously a very visual guy, but I kind of feel most people are okay seeing a nice picture next to a couple of bullet points as opposed to a page full of text. Maybe I'm speaking at, maybe I'm incorrect, but at least in my world, uh, I prefer that.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, I'm with You too. I like, I like pictures in my blog posts. I like infographics.

Stuart Cohen: Right, right. Absolutely. Yeah. And say for blog post, it's same thing. I mean, I don't think the price per license need to be large. It does not need to be large at all. But. And it's great if you had a trusted supplier that you could just go download whatever you want to use for your blog post. And, and now what's going on? And this is cool, and you kind of touched on this, but I'll just take it a little further. So say you have an image that you downloaded from a, a stock site. Then you want to change it a little bit. So a lot of people are now adding a generative AI app into their platforms, which would be. So, like, say you want to extend the background or you want to, uh, make the sky have clouds or just whatever. So you're basically just adding some little touches to it, which makes it kind of yours a bit, you know, add some, your own personality. Or maybe you want to put your product in it. Maybe you want to put your, you know, your little box of chocolates on the park bench. So it's generative AI. Uh, so it's additive generative AI. So you're allowed to change the visual and you still have the rights to use it and it becomes something branded for you. And I think right there, it's making it really easy. I think that's going to be really a game changer for people.

Bailey Gunnell: Is the licensing different for that?

Stuart Cohen: No, it's not going to be different. And, and really what's great is it used to be like, you'll find a picture, you're like, okay, I'm going to use this because it makes sense. It's close. But now with a few minor prompts, you know, hopefully you'll be able to tweak these files to make them look more like you created them. You know, put your own personality in it.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: So.

Bailey Gunnell: And going back to what you said too, about the scroll, is it on your phone or is it on a desktop computer? You can change the sizing to fit the device people are on.

Stuart Cohen: That's true. And the scroll is real.

Bailey Gunnell: It is. Yeah, it is. That's really, really, um, interesting. A great way to customize things there.

Stuart Cohen: Absolutely. It really is.

Bailey Gunnell: What are some things that people can keep an eye out for if they're using stock visuals to stay authentic with your brand? I think that idea you just shared of them customizing their images, but is there anything else they should look out for?

Stuart Cohen: Well, I think big picture, maybe having a visual palette like that your company likes, whether it's a color palette. And I do think you could always find any photograph and you could put, you know, like a filter on it like you'd see in Instagram or something. But there are all sorts of filters. So, uh, you know, maybe everything has a little bit of a color tint which would make it yours. Or, you know, you want to be able to line them up next to each other and say, yeah, that's me, that's my.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, they all fit together.

Stuart Cohen: Exactly. Yeah.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I think if you put it on a board or however makes the most sense for you, it's nice to see them all, all telling a story together.

Stuart Cohen: Absolutely, absolutely. And it's really easy if you put them all next to each other. You're like, yeah, you know what, this one didn't work. Let's get rid of it.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: And it should evolve. I mean, and your look and feel can evolve. And it would be really interesting to see a brand, you know, who kept aboard of everything they've done and tried to keep it similar. But it would be interesting to see like a, ah, slow evolution across a couple years of whether it's the color palette changed or, I don't know, whatever. Yeah, well, the pictures got bolder, you know, who knows?

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, it is. Yeah. Interesting to see how things change over time. Like whether that's photos or people's style or whatever else.

Stuart Cohen: Well, that's the one thing also, like when you're licensing pictures, you know, look for style. Are these clothes dated? Is the picture look dated? Or maybe you want a picture that looks like it was shot in 1985, you know, and that's what's great, because that's hard to re. I mean, that costs money to recreate. But some there's. And we own actually a couple of vintage archives which date back more to the 40s and 50s, like black and white, fun advertising stuff. But even now, the stuff in the 80s, you know, think of those old big old computer rooms or our hairstyles or even clothing styles. It takes a. You could license it or you could create it. I mean, it's really fun to create pictures in a period for a period piece, but it's cost a little more.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Wow. Um, that's so fun though, for the businesses that need that.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah, absolutely.

Bailey Gunnell: Have you played around with any of these AI tools when it comes to video or image creation?

Stuart Cohen: I have, and it's nuts, I, uh, will tell you. And it is A little early to address it because I can't spill the beans because there's now there's a bunch of different apps and a bunch of different AI models that are making it. Everything does something a little differently. So we're experimenting with that. Do we use the same one? Do we try to customize it? We're now trying to create a. They're called a Lora with just my style, like letting it learn off of my work. And then of course, that's going to be a game changer, I think. And when that happens, I'll let you know, because that, uh, then for me it'll be, wow, you mean I can make a picture that looks like I went out and shot it on in that way, you know, in the Serengeti. But I really didn't. Although I'd still prefer to be there. I still prefer to go out and do it. And I won't stop doing that. We are in the business and the commercial business, so our job is to help customers. And like it or not, our job is to help customers at the most economical, in the most economical way to help them. I'm still going to look for the people that are going to send me to crazy locations, but at the same time I'm going to help everybody else as well.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, it is crazy how many tools there are. Every quarter we, we have new goals and initiatives for tools we want to test out and just new processes. And one of mine this quarter was to find an AI video tool. And I had a really hard time with it because I was like, there's so many and it's changing every week. So it's like one that has to continuously be on our mind to keep an eye out for and see what's.

Stuart Cohen: They really are changing really rapidly and evolving for the better. Here's the thing to think about, and I think we talked about this last week. This technology has not even been out. Like we're dealing with it today. It has not even been two years. It was November, so it's like 23 months old. And remember at first everyone said, uh, oh, that person has six fingers. Oh, you know, yeah, think how far it's come in two years. So it's going to continue to evolve and grow and the big players today may not be the big players tomorrow. But I think as a user, uh, of the technology, you'll slowly come to find what tools work best for you. And as they evolve, you'll see new tools come out and I think it'll become pretty organic for us. But I do feel like we're going to have to all dedicate some time to learn. This is when it would be great to be 12 years old right now, where you could just be sitting in your basement, like, just trying different things, and those kids will be in the workforce, what, in 10 years? Ish.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: Well, we better be really good because what's coming up behind us, these kids are gonna. They're gonna be natives.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: I really feel like if all of us are very well versed in all the tools and the ways to use all the different AIs, I think we're going to get left behind. I'm always been a believer of education, but I don't think education any ever stops. And I think if you stop today, especially, you're going to get left in the dirt.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. To be a kid right now, man. Wow. So many. So many cool tools to take advantage of. There's like, so many young people starting businesses too, or becoming content creators, doing so. So much cool stuff.

Stuart Cohen: I think they're doing great stuff. It's different than what we did. I don't. I think we came from a great time also.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: I think everybody. Everybody grows up in their own unique time and everyone excels at whatever was the thing when they were coming up.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: It's kind of fun to continue to learn and it's necessary, I think, to stay current in the business world. For sure. You meet people that are not interested in continuing ed, and they just slowly fade away.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: Because they lose their edge.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. It's really hard. There's. Yeah. So many businesses go obsolete as. As time goes on.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah. What do they say about small businesses? What is the average small business? There's a failure rate. Yeah. What's the failure rate? It's nuts. And part of it is like, maybe they didn't do their homework, like, or maybe there's not the love, you know? Uh, and that's a whole other conversation for a different podcast. But I really feel like, you know, why I've done what I've done for so long is I really enjoy doing it. I really love it. And so it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to make a quick buck in this business. And I think the people who go into business just to make a quick buck when the going gets hard, you know, what do you do? And maybe that's why they fail. I mean, is it failure? Or they're just like, I'm gonna get. I'm gonna stop this. I'm gonna try something else.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. So I just looked it up.

Stuart Cohen: Okay.

Bailey Gunnell: 80%. Oh, wait, 90. Fail within the first few years.

Stuart Cohen: No. Yeah, 90%.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. That's a lot.

Stuart Cohen: We're easy. Okay, well, there you go.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: That's really nuts, you know?

Bailey Gunnell: It is.

Stuart Cohen: I. I could see it happening, though. I could see how easy it would be to fail. And I mean, I think starting a business when you're young, at least I did. Was good because it's not like I have any overhead. It was before marriage or family and stuff like that. So I could eat on, you know, barely eat.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Rice and beans.

Stuart Cohen: M. Exactly. It's harder, I think, when you're. If you were to leave a company and try to start your business without being properly funded. I have read that most of them are underfunded, and so you don't have enough Runway. And that's important too, is because sometimes, like we were talking about with brand identity, sometimes it takes a minute for your brand identity to sink in someone. It might take three years for someone to say, hey, this is great. Where you been? It's like, I've been here for three years. Like, well, I didn't know.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: When. At least retail stores, you know, you look at these crazy retail stores and you're like, what are you thinking? Because, you know, like, there are certain ones. I'm only going to make smoothies made out of vanilla beans. Like. Okay. And on Fridays, you know. Okay. You're not going to be around long.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. I think it was Damon John from Shark Tank. He said it took me years to become an overnight success. Yeah, it takes a long time.

Stuart Cohen: That's a great saying. And when I was out of school and I was working as a photo assistant, one of my mentors was. God. He had to be close to 40. And a big article came up out about him about, like, uh, coming out of nowhere. And he said, I've been doing this for 15 years.

Bailey Gunnell: Uh, wow.

Stuart Cohen: You know. Yeah. I'm on overnight sensation 15 years later. But it takes a while for people to notice, you know? Yeah. Uh, I do think in today's day and age, I think you can. If you're super, super unique, you could spread quicker just because of technology and the Internet. And I think back in the day it was harder, but again, there are a lot of flashes in the pan today as well, because you could blow up and be gone, like in 20 seconds.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Um, it's a different battle to stay relevant.

Stuart Cohen: It is. And you got to hand it to anyone that stays in the. In the cultural zeitgeist for for whatever. If that sounds right.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: Because it's hard. And you think about, you know, even think about movie stars. So say a movie star, they have a movie coming out and for a minute you see them everywhere. Like they're on the COVID of Rolling Stone magazine or, uh, they're in Vogue and with clothes and their Vanity Fair. And you see them everywhere. People magazine. And granted those magazines are disappearing too, but anyway. But you see them everywhere and they're on late night talk shows and you're like, okay, enough. I've seen that. You know that star way too much.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: But then they go. They do go quiet because say they're in between projects. And, uh, and it took me years to understand that you can't always be top of mind. It probably goes in waves, you know, um, hopefully you're top of mind with your customers.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: But it's hard to be the innovative wonder child every day. It's okay if you're not, like, cutting edge every day.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, yeah, 100%. That, that is a lot of work, I think, for a lot of businesses, especially B2B businesses.

Stuart Cohen: Right.

Bailey Gunnell: That, uh, isn't always what affects your bottom line. Right. Consistency. It will probably do a lot more than being the huge PR story of the month.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah, yeah. And it's, uh. Yeah, but you got to keep a low roar.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, yeah. Oh, I like that too.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah, you could use that one.

Bailey Gunnell: That's a good one. I'll keep that one.

Bailey Gunnell: All right.

Stuart Cohen: Please do. Please do.

Bailey Gunnell: There was one thing you said on our pre call too, that I really loved is don't become a prompt engineer. Become a storyteller who knows how to find the right visuals. And I'd love for you just to dig into that a little more.

Stuart Cohen: That was good. Was that on our free call or was that today? We talked about that. Didn't we talk about?

Bailey Gunnell: I mean, I think it's come up a couple times I just had to quote it because I loved it.

Stuart Cohen: Well, that's great. And yeah, uh, I remember when I said that, I'm like, wow, that was pretty good. No, no, no. Back to how we got on it. Today is about authenticity. So you want to tell stories using authentic moments, being authentic. And I think the AI and any, any bots will, will follow along. It's kind of like loving what you do, you know, if you love what you do and you have that vision and you're a storyteller and even if you're not really a storyteller, learn to become a little bit of a storyteller. And try to tell the story about who your company is and how you got here and why you want this person's business. And I think that comes across as more genuine. Now granted, I know everybody's going to take whatever they write about who I am, why I'm here, all this stuff, and put it into some AI and try to get a tagline for their company. But just remember that you need to keep some humanity in it. And I think that's where we're going to lose is if you start becoming. If people look at you like, oh, bot wrote that, then you're done, you know?

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. So. Yeah. Then you're in trouble.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah.

Bailey Gunnell: And I. There's so many tools to accomplish what you need to do, but it does go back to that storytelling, like you're saying. And that's something I have. I feel like it's been my mantra this year, just trying to become a better storyteller. And it will probably follow me throughout my whole life, but I think it's

Stuart Cohen: a hard thing to do. You know how like sometimes when you go to parties, there are people that can just tell stories.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: And they're just great. They have a group of people around them all the time and they're always telling some story and you're like, wow, my personal storyteller. And sometimes it's a delivery. Sometimes when you're tell say, if I'm telling you a story, I might like rush through it. Oh my God, it was really cold. And then we're here and then we're there and then I got a flat tire or whatever. And sometimes these storytellers, they, you know, they speak a little slower and they embellish things and they, they add adjectives. You know, it was a very dark, cold night, you know, and it was snowy. I think the stories are good and I think we're all very imaginative.

Bailey Gunnell: Mhm.

Stuart Cohen: And I think everybody, you need to look around and see what's really there and take it all in. I mean, we rush through life really fast. We rush through events, we rush through family events. We rush through. I think stopping and smelling the roses, wherever that term came from is a good one.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: And just try to take it all in, being cognizant. And if something's great, say, wow, this was great.

Bailey Gunnell: Love it. We do need to, to stop and smell the roses. Life goes so fast.

Stuart Cohen: Yeah.

Bailey Gunnell: You can't, can't slow it down.

Stuart Cohen: No. But it's a fun ride.

Bailey Gunnell: It is. And yeah. Learn. Uh, that's my goal is to tell better Stories about life as it goes on.

Stuart Cohen: All right, I'm gonna hold you to it.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, I need to. Yeah, we're getting close to time, so I've got one last fun question for you. And then if there's any other tips or just advice you want to share with the audience, we'll give you a minute for that. But my. My fun question is, what is your biggest content marketing ick? Something that really bothers you when you see it out in the wild.

Stuart Cohen: Wow, that's a new one.

Bailey Gunnell: Um, it's trending.

Stuart Cohen: Oh, it is. Okay.

Bailey Gunnell: I think I learned it from my niece.

Stuart Cohen: It's good, though. It's good content marketing ick. I would say just obviously just bad inauthentic AI put together bots that are selling stuff. I mean, they're really just. I mean, they need to go away.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: Where.

Bailey Gunnell: Where are you seeing that the most?

Stuart Cohen: Well, on my death scrolls, you know.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: On. On Instagram. Yeah. On TikTok. It's funny, my YouTube shorts, I don't really scroll those. Do you scroll those?

Bailey Gunnell: No.

Stuart Cohen: No, Me neither. I see them when I'm on, uh, not. I mean, my. I'm sorry, my YouTube shorts. I don't scroll Instagram. I scroll. Yeah. Because usually I only see YouTube shorts when I'm on YouTube, so you have to click them and. But I forgot how we got there. The heck is. Yeah. Keep it real.

Bailey Gunnell: AI selling stuff.

Stuart Cohen: I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, there's so many imaginative people and there's so much great stuff out there. And I, uh, don't know where it comes from, but there's some really great stuff. There is plenty of store. There are plenty of stories to go around.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Yep. Some. So many good creative things.

Bailey Gunnell: Absolutely.

Bailey Gunnell: Any other tips or advice you have?

Stuart Cohen: Yeah. Tips for content marketing. I would just say do it a lot, shoot a lot, work with great people, hire great vendors and suppliers, and don't stop. And it's an investment. And it's actually kind of fun. It's really fun to see where you end up. And I think unless you try stuff, you're never going to know if it works or not.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Stuart Cohen: I'm a big believer. And throw a lot against the wall, see what sticks.

Bailey Gunnell: Yep.

Stuart Cohen: And it's okay. It's fun. Go for it.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah. Yeah. It's an investment in. In your company. And sometimes I get asked like, what's the ROI on this? But I'm like, it's table stakes. Like.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah.

Bailey Gunnell: Uh, you can't have a business without a visual identity.

Stuart Cohen: That's true. And not everything has a direct ROI to it. Yeah, I know it's supposed to, but it's.

Bailey Gunnell: Yeah, not always. You can't put a price on trust.

Stuart Cohen: No, you're right.

Bailey Gunnell: A price on your authority. What people think about you.

Stuart Cohen: Absolutely. You're totally correct.

Bailey Gunnell: Well, where is the best place for people to find you?

Stuart Cohen: Okay, love that question. You can find me anywhere. Well, easily. I mean on, um. I'm um, on LinkedIn. Stuart Cohen, Instagram SC pictures if you want to license anything. Superstock.com and we'll happily help you find whatever you're looking for. Or of course, email. You could always just email me, Stuart, with any e W S T E W a r t stewartewartcohen.com Perfect.

Bailey Gunnell: That'll all be in the show notes too, so people can easily click on it. But thank you so much for joining today. I learned a lot. Pulled a lot of one liners I'm going to steal now.

Stuart Cohen: Good. It was great. Are you kidding? I had a great time. So thank you for inviting me.

Bailey Gunnell: Thank you.

Bailey Gunnell: Thanks for tuning into another episode of Content Logistics. Make sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next episode.

Bailey Gunnell: Bye.