The archive · Public & Social · Marketing decision · 2018
Getty and fiftyfifty recast homeless vendors as stock models to fund housing
Homeless street-magazine vendors pose as the professionals in Getty's best-selling scenes; photo profits pay for housing.
Getty Images · fiftyfifty
What it had to solve
Public imagery of homeless people was dominated by negative stereotypes, and the vendors of the Düsseldorf street magazine fiftyfifty lived with that perception every day. Getty Images wanted to shift how homelessness is viewed and raise donations in a way that felt meaningful rather than pitying.
How it works
For years, the stock photos that illustrate articles and campaigns showed homeless people as a problem: someone to pity, fear or walk past. The vendors of fiftyfifty, the Düsseldorf street magazine sold by homeless people, lived inside that stereotype while trying to earn a living from it. Getty Images set out to shift the negative perception and raise donations in a way that felt meaningful rather than pitying.
The answer was to make the vendors the models in Getty's most in-demand life and work scenarios. Working with the magazine, Getty photographed the vendors as ordinary people doing ordinary things — the generic professional and everyday scenes that stock buyers search for most — and released the pictures through its own library, with all photo profits going to fiftyfifty to house homeless people. The campaign launched in 2018.
The twist was economic as well as visual: the same genre that had profited from stereotyping homeless people now produced licensing income for housing them. The project reported over €155 million in reach and over €1.4 million in earned media, and D&AD recorded it in its awards archive as photographers and NGOs elsewhere began joining the movement.
Why it lands
- Using the vendors as their own models made the images truthful — the people in the pictures were the people the campaign was for.
- Shooting the exact scenes stock buyers already search for placed homeless people inside society's 'normal' picture instead of outside it.
- Charging licence fees connected awareness to money, so changing perception paid for housing rather than just talking about it.
- Distributing through Getty gave a local Düsseldorf idea global reach, which is how other NGOs and photographers could join.
What it did
The series generated over €155 million in reach and over €1.4 million in earned media, with licensing income flowing to fiftyfifty for housing. The idea then began to spread as more photographers and NGOs worldwide joined the project.
What you can take
To change how a group is seen, reshoot the genre instead of arguing about it: put the people themselves in the roles the market already pays for, and let the licence fees fund the change.
Since then
The campaign launched in Germany in 2018 and stayed in D&AD's awards archive with its headline numbers: over €155 million in reach and over €1.4 million in earned media, with profits going to fiftyfifty to house homeless people. Getty's own archive entry describes more photographers and NGOs worldwide joining the project, turning a single stock series into an ongoing way to fund housing through imagery.
Sources
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