Following its acquisition of Toronto-based Flashstock in July 2017, leading global tech giant Shutterstock officially relaunched Flashstock as Shutterstock Custom this morning. The company is now able to offer its 1.7 million customers an efficient and innovative platform to create branded content.

Shutterstock Custom is powered by Flashstock’s proprietary technology. The process is simple: The system first ingests a company’s visual identity and transforms it into a creative brief for each new campaign. Once the brief is received, a global network of creative talent shoots unique imagery for the project. This includes interactive content, such as photos, videos, GIFs, cinemagraphs and 360°s. Upon receiving final images, the brand can quickly enhance this content by resizing and adding filters, text and logos through the seamlessly integrated Shutterstock Editor API.

 

 

Grant Munro, founder of Flashstock and General Manager of Shutterstock Custom, told FAJO that this is yet another acquisition of a Canadian business for Shutterstock (the last one was the 2015 acquisition of PremiumBeat).

“Canada has emerged as a hotbed for tech startups,” he said. “I believe it stems from access to great local universities, and people are sticking around in hubs like Toronto and Montréal, and making a career for themselves on the frontlines of innovation and technology. … It’s a great time for technology in Canada, and we’re proud to be a part of it.”

The fashion sector is currently among one of the most technologically engaged industries in the world. Munro added that “brand storytelling has always been at the heart of fashion brands” since “they are natural storytellers.”

“As consumer preference and behaviour shifts, fashion brands must keep pace and adopt new technologies and platforms quickly and nimbly,” he said. “Over past years, we’ve witnessed, and have participated in, a mass adoption in Instagram not only as a social media outlet to complement an existing brand, but also as a standalone platform to establish a brand. Fashion brands, in particular, have led this charge and this campaign that has injected a whole new set of great visual storytelling.

“What’s changed isn’t the demand, rather the methods of delivery. People expect a scalable, cost-effective approach for marketing and operational services, and we’ll deliver that to Shutterstock customers.”

“When we speak to clients, we’re not just asking what stories they want to tell, but we’re also wondering about, and questioning, which are the right places to share those stories. Simply repurposing content from other channels won’t work. They require scalable content, and, with an early adopter mantra in mind, we’re always looking to test new solutions to help people achieve their objectives.”

Learn more about Shutterstock Custom here.