Getty Images has been one of the biggest names in visual content for decades, and Getty Custom Content is its answer for brands that want imagery created specifically for them: a global creator network, exclusive selected assets, and established rights infrastructure.
But Getty is not the only way to build a custom brand footage library.
A growing set of production companies, creator networks, and custom stock specialists now solve the same underlying problem. How do you create a large volume of high-quality, on-brand visual content that works across campaigns, instead of producing everything one project at a time?
If you’re evaluating Getty Custom Content alternatives, the most useful question is not who can shoot the footage. It is this. What kind of content library are you trying to build, how will you use it, and which production model creates the most long-term value?
Here is the framework sophisticated brands use to decide.
What Is Getty Custom Content?
Getty Custom Content is Getty’s custom production offering for brands that need exclusive photography or video built around a specific brief. Unlike traditional stock, which already exists and can be licensed by many customers, Custom Content is produced for the commissioning brand alone.
That distinction matters. You are not buying stock. You are commissioning a stock-style content library for your brand.
Production Built Around a Deliverable or a Library?
This is the biggest distinction, and the one most often missed.
A campaign shoot is optimized around a specific edit. Custom stock is optimized around coverage. Instead of capturing only what today’s commercial requires, the crew intentionally captures variation. Different compositions, focal lengths, talent combinations, actions, environments, and framings. Vertical and horizontal. Close-ups and wides.
The goal is footage that stays useful long after the original campaign ends.
At Cardboard Spaceship, licensed stock footage productions are structured specifically around building an evergreen library rather than a single deliverable. The model emphasizes versatile coverage that can be re-contextualized across messages, channels, and seasons.
When comparing providers, ask one question. How is your production process different when the goal is a reusable footage library? If the answer sounds exactly like their commercial process, they are not really offering custom stock.
How Much Usable Content Does Each Production Create?
Shoot cost alone is a misleading number. The metric that matters is cost per usable asset.
A production that generates 150 highly usable clips creates fundamentally different economics than one that generates 20, regardless of the day rate. Before signing, ask prospective partners:
- How much footage is typically captured per production day?
- How many final clips will be available for selection?
- Are clips individually delivered and color-treated?
- Are vertical variations captured?
- Are releases and clearances handled?
- Is footage organized and tagged for reuse?
A provider that structures shoots as stock-ready productions should be able to answer these questions immediately, with specifics.
Who Actually Produces the Content?
Different providers use very different creative models, and none is inherently better.
Getty’s advantage is scale. Its contributor network spans markets and geographies, which matters for multinational brands commissioning content across regions.
Curated production models sit at the other end. Cardboard Spaceship’s Custom Stock approach selects experienced filmmakers around the creative needs of each production, with an emphasis on cinematic quality and creators who understand how footage functions inside a licensed library.
Distributed creator platforms occupy a third position, connecting brands with photographers and videographers who produce product-centered content at volume.
If geographic reach is the priority, scale wins. If cinematic consistency and creative direction are the priority, curation wins. Be honest about which one your brand actually needs.
How Much Creative Control Do You Get?
“Custom” can mean very different things. Before choosing a partner, understand who controls creative direction, casting, locations, wardrobe, shot lists, camera style, and final asset selection.
For some brands, the goal is simply content more relevant than generic stock. For others, every frame needs to look unmistakably like the brand. That second standard requires more than sending creators a brief. It requires a production partner who aligns on brand, audience, and distribution before a camera turns on, then lets the client curate the strongest footage into the final library.
When interviewing potential partners, ask one simple question. Who makes the creative decisions? The answer tells you most of what you need to know.
What Rights Do You Receive?
Great footage is useless if nobody knows where the company is allowed to use it. Rights should be one of the first things you compare, not a detail resolved after production.
Any credible provider should answer these clearly, in writing:
- Where can we use the footage, and for how long?
- Can it run in paid advertising and on social?
- Can our agencies access it?
- Are talent releases and location clearances included?
- Is the footage exclusive, or could it ever be licensed to another brand?
Cardboard Spaceship delivers selected clips as cleared, licensed assets intended for broad use across paid, owned, and earned channels. Do not assume every provider’s definition of custom content includes the same rights.
Is the Content Designed for Long-Term Use?
A strong custom library should reduce how often your team says, “We don’t have anything that works for this.”
Consider everywhere a single library may eventually appear. Paid and organic social. Websites and landing pages. Recruiting campaigns. Investor presentations and corporate video communications. Product launches, trade shows, and brand films.
The footage does not need to be created for any one of those deliverables. It needs to be flexible enough to work in many of them. That is why evergreen actions, clean environments, and strong coverage carry so much value.
The real return on custom stock is not what the footage does in its first month. It is what the footage eliminates the need to reshoot over the next two or three years. Content that compounds instead of expiring with a campaign.
Sometimes the Right Answer Is a Traditional Production
Not every project should be a library. If your real need is one hero commercial or a single brand film, designing the shoot around custom stock adds complexity you do not need. A full-service video production engagement built around that one deliverable will serve you better.
The decision comes down to the question you are asking. “How do we make this one piece exceptional?” points to traditional commercial video production. “How do we stop starting from scratch every time we need content?” points to custom stock.
The Bigger Question: Are You Buying Content or Building an Asset?
This is the distinction that should drive the entire evaluation.
Traditional stock is an expense. A well-constructed custom stock library behaves differently. It becomes a brand asset. Each production adds new people, environments, products, and stories to a growing visual ecosystem, and every reuse increases the return on the original investment.
The question stops being what the shoot costs. It becomes how many future pieces of content the shoot can help you create.
If the goal is simply another video, commission another video. However, if the goal is a proprietary footage library that gets more valuable every time it is used, build a proprietary custom stock footage library that delivers more value with every campaign. Choose a provider that creates versatile footage for long-term use across marketing, advertising, social media, and future productions.
Cardboard Spaceship helps brands create reusable video content libraries that maximize the value of every shoot. Through our custom stock model, we deliver premium, cinematic content – purpose-built for your brand, and designed to work across campaigns, channels, and time.
If that is the library you are trying to create, we should talk.
Frequently Asked Questions
There is no single best alternative for every organization. Brands seeking premium cinematic footage built as an evergreen library are best served by a curated production model like Cardboard Spaceship’s Custom Stock. Brands needing distributed product content across markets may prefer a creator-network platform. The right choice depends on what you are building.
Custom stock footage is professionally produced video created around a specific brand but intentionally shot for reuse across many future projects. It can feature the brand’s people, products, locations, and visual style while retaining the versatility of stock.
A commercial shoot is optimized around completing one specific edit. A custom stock production is optimized around creating a large collection of individual clips that support multiple future campaigns and deliverables.
It depends on the agreement. Rights, exclusivity, and ownership vary by provider, so examine the specific license rather than assuming “custom” means unrestricted ownership. Cardboard Spaceship delivers selected Custom Stock clips cleared and licensed for broad brand use.
It is most valuable for organizations with ongoing video needs across multiple campaigns and channels. If footage from one production can be reused in paid media, websites, social, presentations, and future edits, evaluate the cost across all of those uses, not against a single video.
