Wrong cow used!

[Ace]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26650621

 

Wonder who is at fault here ?

[Jill Morgan]

Where the photo came from isn't mentioned, but this could be the problem of amateur photographers taking photos of subjects they are not familiar with and labeling them with the wrong keywords. Since the colouring is similar to freisan and holstein cows, then the advertising and marketing people of a company the size of Tesco (who really would have no knowledge of different cattle breeds) would assume the photographer knew what they were talking about. They would be depending on the accuracy of their stock photography supplier to know what is on their site.

 

Stock suppliers such as Alamy, SS, istock, etc. do haven't the slightest idea if their photographers actually know if their keywording does cover the proper subject.  I came across a picture of a striped hyena on Alamy and the person also calls it a laughing hyena which is incorrect. Only the spotted hyena laughs and has that moniker.  Some people do not research enough on what they publish and now down the chain line companies such as Tesco end up with egg on their face and a very expensive mistake, both in dollars and publicity.

 

Jill

[John Morrison]

There must be tens of thousands of wrongly captioned pix on Alamy, You only have to do some 'real life' searches to see what turns up. The reasons range from giving the same caption to a whole shoot, which is lazy... to not knowing the name of a bird or tree, which is just plain ignorant. Wrongly captioned pix will drag a snapper's rank down... so nobody benefits...

[John Mitchell]

If you really want to see wrongly identified images, then check out microstock websites. Miss-captioning has reached epidemic proportions on some of them.

[Guest]

You can't assume the cows were wrongly captioned. More likely the ad agency/dept saw udders and thought... that pic will do for this milk advert.

[Jill Morgan]

If you really want to see wrongly identified images, then check out microstock websites. Miss-captioning has reached epidemic proportions on some of them.

 

This is where crowd sourcing news photographs is going to cost some newspaper somewhere a lot of money one day.

 

Jill

[losdemas]

Where the photo came from isn't mentioned, but this could be the problem of amateur photographers taking photos of subjects they are not familiar with and labeling them with the wrong keywords. Since the colouring is similar to freisan and holstein cows, then the advertising and marketing people of a company the size of Tesco (who really would have no knowledge of different cattle breeds) would assume the photographer knew what they were talking about. They would be depending on the accuracy of their stock photography supplier to know what is on their site.

 

Stock suppliers such as Alamy, SS, istock, etc. do haven't the slightest idea if their photographers actually know if their keywording does cover the proper subject.  I came across a picture of a striped hyena on Alamy and the person also calls it a laughing hyena which is incorrect. Only the spotted hyena laughs and has that moniker.  Some people do not research enough on what they publish and now down the chain line companies such as Tesco end up with egg on their face and a very expensive mistake, both in dollars and publicity.

 

Jill

 

Presuming that I took wildlife images...If I had a picture of a spotted hyena - having firstly ensured that it was captioned correctly for what it was - I would likely add 'laughing' to the keywords for the simple reason that I judge that someone wanting a picture of a hyena, and not concerned about what type it was, might well search for 'laughing hyena'.

 

I want to get as many possible buyers to see my picture, hence I add misspellings, international spelling variations, etc, AND I account for dumb (and general) searches.  The caption will hopefully educate the dumb searchers, but if I can't get them to see the image in the first place, then I'm nowhere.

[Jill Morgan]

 

Where the photo came from isn't mentioned, but this could be the problem of amateur photographers taking photos of subjects they are not familiar with and labeling them with the wrong keywords. Since the colouring is similar to freisan and holstein cows, then the advertising and marketing people of a company the size of Tesco (who really would have no knowledge of different cattle breeds) would assume the photographer knew what they were talking about. They would be depending on the accuracy of their stock photography supplier to know what is on their site.

 

Stock suppliers such as Alamy, SS, istock, etc. do haven't the slightest idea if their photographers actually know if their keywording does cover the proper subject.  I came across a picture of a striped hyena on Alamy and the person also calls it a laughing hyena which is incorrect. Only the spotted hyena laughs and has that moniker.  Some people do not research enough on what they publish and now down the chain line companies such as Tesco end up with egg on their face and a very expensive mistake, both in dollars and publicity.

 

Jill

 

Presuming that I took wildlife images...If I had a picture of a spotted hyena - having firstly ensured that it was captioned correctly for what it was - I would likely add 'laughing' to the keywords for the simple reason that I judge that someone wanting a picture of a hyena, and not concerned about what type it was, might well search for 'laughing hyena'.

 

I want to get as many possible buyers to see my picture, hence I add misspellings, international spelling variations, etc, AND I account for dumb (and general) searches.  The caption will hopefully educate the dumb searchers, but if I can't get them to see the image in the first place, then I'm nowhere.

 

 

Now the spotted hyena is the laughing hyena. But if your pic was of the striped hyena and you include laughing and someone does a search for a laughing hyena, your picture is superfluous as it isn't a laughing hyena. It would be misleading a buyer who may not know exactly what a laughing hyena looks like or thinks all hyenas laugh. I would not include laughing in a pic of a hyena that wasn't a spotted hyena.

 

So if you had a picture of a Sumatran Tiger, would you also include Siberian or Bengal in your keywords? I certainly would not.

 

Jill

[PatrioticAlien]

I hope they weren't hoping or planning to bring out beef tasting milk.  

[SShep]

Presuming that I took wildlife images...If I had a picture of a spotted hyena - having firstly ensured that it was captioned correctly for what it was - I would likely add 'laughing' to the keywords for the simple reason that I judge that someone wanting a picture of a hyena, and not concerned about what type it was, might well search for 'laughing hyena'.

 

I want to get as many possible buyers to see my picture, hence I add misspellings, international spelling variations, etc, AND I account for dumb (and general) searches.  The caption will hopefully educate the dumb searchers, but if I can't get them to see the image in the first place, then I'm nowhere.

 

 

I agree.  I see this as one of the problems of displaying ALL keywords.  I have always made sure that my captions are scrupulously accurate but a non-visible keyword is simply a means of trying to present what the buyer wants, not a description eg (an example I've used before) describing any off-road car as a jeep because that's what they are often called, regardless of make.

 

Steve

[David Kilpatrick]

Beef cattle tend to be in open fields. Milk cattle are not (usually). So finding the right sort of cows in the right environment is unlikely without a trip to New Zealand, in which case animated CGI cows can be found easily.

[Jill Morgan]

Beef cattle tend to be in open fields. Milk cattle are not (usually). So finding the right sort of cows in the right environment is unlikely without a trip to New Zealand, in which case animated CGI cows can be found easily.

 

All the dairy cows here in Canada are found in open fields (after morning milking) so if you wanted a good shot of a holstein cow with a full udder, you would come by a farm around 4 in the afternoon. Cows would still be out and udders full ready to be milked. As to the original post, I'm sure some poor soul in advertising got his butt handed to him for not doing his checking.

 

Jill

[Lynn Palmer]

So the client plus two or three other people who undoubtedly received a proof for review and approval have no responsibility at all for this error?  Instead the low paid graphic artist that is only unchained from his computer for a few minutes a day is blamed

[Jose Elias]

Beef cattle tend to be in open fields. Milk cattle are not (usually). So finding the right sort of cows in the right environment is unlikely without a trip to New Zealand, in which case animated CGI cows can be found easily.

 

 In the Portuguese islands of Azores the milk cows not only roam free in the fields, but the landscape itself is amazing. Plus, this happens in many places in Portugal.

 

As for wrong captions and keywords, every time I search anything about Portugal many of the images have wrong identifications, not only in the location, the characteristics, but even in the name of what is being shown.

 

Unfortunately these results appear in the first pages, which means that they are being uploaded by people with high rankings that should know what they are doing.

[Dyn Llun]

Superb blunder by Tesco or their ad agency. I have homes in two places that have kicked Tesco out when they tried to muscle in, buy land and open stores so good news.

 

Also smaller farmers here do let milk herds out in the summer. Large commercial concerns keep them permanently inside but you can still get pics of farmers collecting their herds twice a day to take in for milking. I often have to wait for them to cross the road if I'm driving. 

[losdemas]

 

 

Where the photo came from isn't mentioned, but this could be the problem of amateur photographers taking photos of subjects they are not familiar with and labeling them with the wrong keywords. Since the colouring is similar to freisan and holstein cows, then the advertising and marketing people of a company the size of Tesco (who really would have no knowledge of different cattle breeds) would assume the photographer knew what they were talking about. They would be depending on the accuracy of their stock photography supplier to know what is on their site.

 

Stock suppliers such as Alamy, SS, istock, etc. do haven't the slightest idea if their photographers actually know if their keywording does cover the proper subject.  I came across a picture of a striped hyena on Alamy and the person also calls it a laughing hyena which is incorrect. Only the spotted hyena laughs and has that moniker.  Some people do not research enough on what they publish and now down the chain line companies such as Tesco end up with egg on their face and a very expensive mistake, both in dollars and publicity.

 

Jill

 

Presuming that I took wildlife images...If I had a picture of a spotted hyena - having firstly ensured that it was captioned correctly for what it was - I would likely add 'laughing' to the keywords for the simple reason that I judge that someone wanting a picture of a hyena, and not concerned about what type it was, might well search for 'laughing hyena'.

 

I want to get as many possible buyers to see my picture, hence I add misspellings, international spelling variations, etc, AND I account for dumb (and general) searches.  The caption will hopefully educate the dumb searchers, but if I can't get them to see the image in the first place, then I'm nowhere.

 

 

Now the spotted hyena is the laughing hyena. But if your pic was of the striped hyena and you include laughing and someone does a search for a laughing hyena, your picture is superfluous as it isn't a laughing hyena. It would be misleading a buyer who may not know exactly what a laughing hyena looks like or thinks all hyenas laugh. I would not include laughing in a pic of a hyena that wasn't a spotted hyena.

 

So if you had a picture of a Sumatran Tiger, would you also include Siberian or Bengal in your keywords? I certainly would not.

 

Jill

 

 

No, I would say that I would not.  I play each example by ear.  In your example of tigers, I would judge it more likely that the buyer is aware of their end requirement and are unlikely to search so specifically unless that is what they required.  In the hyena example, however, I would judge 'laughing' as more of a generic term likely to used by someone unknowledgeable in the subject, and would thus include it.

 

As Steve says, below, this is absolutely a "problem of displaying all keywords": "a non-visible keyword is simply a means of trying to present what the buyer wants" and "I have always made sure that my captions are scrupulously accurate".

 

We all have to decide how to deal with the method of searching which is made available to the purchaser and how those results are displayed to the purchaser.  It does, however, become an issue if a client views one of my images and then decides (incorrectly) that I haven't a clue what I'm talking about and so then decides to drop me off their list of possibles.  Which is one reason why I'm so vehemently against displaying all keywords - when the contributor has done all the keywording.  If this were a level playing field, and Alamy did the keywording, then there would be absolutely no need for me to worry about whether the customer was unclear about their end requirements (or simply a lazy searcher, poor speller, non-native English speaker, etc.), because the cause for adding random keywords to an image would simply not be there.

 

 

Presuming that I took wildlife images...If I had a picture of a spotted hyena - having firstly ensured that it was captioned correctly for what it was - I would likely add 'laughing' to the keywords for the simple reason that I judge that someone wanting a picture of a hyena, and not concerned about what type it was, might well search for 'laughing hyena'.

 

I want to get as many possible buyers to see my picture, hence I add misspellings, international spelling variations, etc, AND I account for dumb (and general) searches.  The caption will hopefully educate the dumb searchers, but if I can't get them to see the image in the first place, then I'm nowhere.

 

 

I agree.  I see this as one of the problems of displaying ALL keywords.  I have always made sure that my captions are scrupulously accurate but a non-visible keyword is simply a means of trying to present what the buyer wants, not a description eg (an example I've used before) describing any off-road car as a jeep because that's what they are often called, regardless of make.

 

Steve

 

[Jill Morgan]

 

 

 

Where the photo came from isn't mentioned, but this could be the problem of amateur photographers taking photos of subjects they are not familiar with and labeling them with the wrong keywords. Since the colouring is similar to freisan and holstein cows, then the advertising and marketing people of a company the size of Tesco (who really would have no knowledge of different cattle breeds) would assume the photographer knew what they were talking about. They would be depending on the accuracy of their stock photography supplier to know what is on their site.

 

Stock suppliers such as Alamy, SS, istock, etc. do haven't the slightest idea if their photographers actually know if their keywording does cover the proper subject.  I came across a picture of a striped hyena on Alamy and the person also calls it a laughing hyena which is incorrect. Only the spotted hyena laughs and has that moniker.  Some people do not research enough on what they publish and now down the chain line companies such as Tesco end up with egg on their face and a very expensive mistake, both in dollars and publicity.

 

Jill

 

Presuming that I took wildlife images...If I had a picture of a spotted hyena - having firstly ensured that it was captioned correctly for what it was - I would likely add 'laughing' to the keywords for the simple reason that I judge that someone wanting a picture of a hyena, and not concerned about what type it was, might well search for 'laughing hyena'.

 

I want to get as many possible buyers to see my picture, hence I add misspellings, international spelling variations, etc, AND I account for dumb (and general) searches.  The caption will hopefully educate the dumb searchers, but if I can't get them to see the image in the first place, then I'm nowhere.

 

 

Now the spotted hyena is the laughing hyena. But if your pic was of the striped hyena and you include laughing and someone does a search for a laughing hyena, your picture is superfluous as it isn't a laughing hyena. It would be misleading a buyer who may not know exactly what a laughing hyena looks like or thinks all hyenas laugh. I would not include laughing in a pic of a hyena that wasn't a spotted hyena.

 

So if you had a picture of a Sumatran Tiger, would you also include Siberian or Bengal in your keywords? I certainly would not.

 

Jill

 

 

No, I would say that I would not.  I play each example by ear.  In your example of tigers, I would judge it more likely that the buyer is aware of their end requirement and are unlikely to search so specifically unless that is what they required.  In the hyena example, however, I would judge 'laughing' as more of a generic term likely to used by someone unknowledgeable in the subject, and would thus include it.

 

As Steve says, below, this is absolutely a "problem of displaying all keywords": "a non-visible keyword is simply a means of trying to present what the buyer wants" and "I have always made sure that my captions are scrupulously accurate".

 

We all have to decide how to deal with the method of searching which is made available to the purchaser and how those results are displayed to the purchaser.  It does, however, become an issue if a client views one of my images and then decides (incorrectly) that I haven't a clue what I'm talking about and so then decides to drop me off their list of possibles.  Which is one reason why I'm so vehemently against displaying all keywords - when the contributor has done all the keywording.  If this were a level playing field, and Alamy did the keywording, then there would be absolutely no need for me to worry about whether the customer was unclear about their end requirements (or simply a lazy searcher, poor speller, non-native English speaker, etc.), because the cause for adding random keywords to an image would simply not be there.

 

 

Presuming that I took wildlife images...If I had a picture of a spotted hyena - having firstly ensured that it was captioned correctly for what it was - I would likely add 'laughing' to the keywords for the simple reason that I judge that someone wanting a picture of a hyena, and not concerned about what type it was, might well search for 'laughing hyena'.

 

I want to get as many possible buyers to see my picture, hence I add misspellings, international spelling variations, etc, AND I account for dumb (and general) searches.  The caption will hopefully educate the dumb searchers, but if I can't get them to see the image in the first place, then I'm nowhere.

 

 

I agree.  I see this as one of the problems of displaying ALL keywords.  I have always made sure that my captions are scrupulously accurate but a non-visible keyword is simply a means of trying to present what the buyer wants, not a description eg (an example I've used before) describing any off-road car as a jeep because that's what they are often called, regardless of make.

 

Steve

 

 

 

I just realized Danny that I missed defining that this particular sample I gave - the animal was defined as a Laughing Hyena in the caption, not the keywords. That is where the I found issue with the photo. The animal was being identified as a laughing hyena.. Putting laughing in the keywords is a whole different thing and a personal choice, but wrongly identifying your subject (as is the case here) can end up causing problems for the end user if they are totally unfamiliar with the subject they are searching for.

 

Jill

[losdemas]

I just realized Danny that I missed defining that this particular sample I gave - the animal was defined as a Laughing Hyena in the caption, not the keywords. That is where the I found issue with the photo. The animal was being identified as a laughing hyena.. Putting laughing in the keywords is a whole different thing and a personal choice, but wrongly identifying your subject (as is the case here) can end up causing problems for the end user if they are totally unfamiliar with the subject they are searching for.

 

Jill

Now we are in total agreement, Jill: that is just plain wrong, poor, slack, unprofessional, lazy - and the rest!  This causes problems for the end user, as you say, and also for the rest of us, as a buyer may well associate the lack of knowledge with the rest of the images in Alamy and be off to buy their images elsewhere.  It's very important for contributors to ensure they input the correct title/caption.  If unsure, they should most definitely seek guidance from the extraordinary help from experienced contributors that is offered here!