Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Pro Business Discussion => Topic started by: Mark Ogden on July 16, 2014, 12:20:46 pm

Title: What is an "Appreciation Level?"
Post by: Mark Ogden on July 16, 2014, 12:20:46 pm
Rod Lough is a fine landscape photographer who I gather has had much success selling his work.  But if you "like" him on Facebook, every so often you get a post to your wall advising that one of his photos has risen to a new "appreciation level", and that those who have previously purchased the picture should have the work reappraised for "insurance and estate planning purposes".  I've looked at his website, but cannot find out what this means, exactly, although I have a feeling that it has something to do with limited edition sales of his prints.  Can anyone enlighten me? 
Title: Re: What is an "Appreciation Level?"
Post by: framah on July 16, 2014, 02:03:07 pm
Sounds like an advertising gimmick to me.

The purpose is to try to get one or more of those people who "liked" the image, to actually buy it.

But, then the whole of Facebook is one big advertising gimmick.
Title: Re: What is an "Appreciation Level?"
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on July 16, 2014, 02:30:24 pm
Not speaking about Rodney specifically, but that is a known and accepted technique for limited editions, rather than a gimmick (unless one considers anything and everything related to marketing and sales as a gimmick, of course).

Say you limit it to 50. You can leave it at that, or you can split it into tiers. You can say that after the first 10 are sold, the price for the remaining ones goes up by, say, 20%, and so on for the next tier. The purpose is to entice "early adopters" to buy, hoping it will go up in price. It also rewards the artist if his work becomes more popular. When artists are new and unknown, they tend to price their work low, in desperate need for cash. If they turn out to be good and in demand, they can only watch how someone else on the secondary market is profiting from the popularity of their early works, but not them. When selling in tiers, at least they participate in their works' success.