Stock photos and brand recognition

I was slightly disturbed when I noticed this picture on our green re-usable Costco bag:



Because:

Snowflake

I don't like repetition in creativity, so something inside me dislikes the idea of stock photos, however, in actually thinking about it, I started to see that there might be some value to the generic stock photo. Besides ease of use and ease-of-less-expense, you know, for all the branding that goes on -- or doesn't go on, in the case of barely-known products -- seeing an image you've seen before, associated to an entirely different product, might actually make you remember the first product you saw using that same image, thus engendering a type of "brand recognition".

Case in point: I see this bag, I immediately think of our CD card. So, a happy customer might be happily enjoying their CD card, purchased from one of missionaries/vendors/distributors, they walk into Costco, notice the same image on the bag, remember the CD card, remember the happy person who sold it to them, think of looking up what other good products they have that they could use as gifts or for a specific purpose, and so on.

Creative, huh?

(I just made that up. I didn't read it or hear about it anywhere else. I hereby copyright this epiphany. Hahaha.)