Challenge
It is a little known fact that Bill Gates owns two companies. The first, of course, is Microsoft. The second is Corbis, the image licensing company he founded back in 1990. Gates founded Corbis based on his vision for the delivery of digital imagery via the Internet. Today that vision has become a reality. Corbis has spent the last decade developing and acquiring the rights to over 60 million images that serve the needs of picture desks, creative professionals and consumers around the world. Harvard's brief is to raise the corporate profile of Corbis and establish the company as a serious challenger to Getty Images, the current market leader.

What we did
In the absence of traditional 'hard news', Harvard has worked from day one to exploit Corbis' number one PR asset – its images. Every approach to the press is based on visual presentations that are designed to excite and inspire the journalist. This is followed up with detailed one-to-one briefings that aim to unravel the subtle nuances of the image licensing business and tease-out a feature length story. Whether the issue is historical preservation, the war in Iraq or creative intellectual property, no stone is left unturned in ensuring that Corbis reaches its creative, editorial and business audiences with dedicated, high-impact features.

Outcomes
Since working with Harvard, Corbis has raised it corporate profile in the UK by increasing the volume of national newspaper coverage it receives by 165%. This includes a front cover story in FT Creative Business, a full page profile in the Independent on Sunday, a two page spread in The Times Saturday Review and a week long series of historical photographs in the Independent. Other highlights include an eight page cover story in the British Journal of Photography, a six page CEO interview in Hotshoe Magazine and a company profile in Design Week.

This work with Corbis's commercial audience has contributed to a global sales effort that increased revenues by 20 percent in 2003, more than five times the consensus growth rate for the advertising/publishing sector.

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