The Marketing Agency Talk

I required some teens and young female adults for one of my client’s events. As you can expect, the client only wanted pretty girls with shapely legs. Naturally, they must be photogenic so that they look gorgeous when posing for the camera.

We called up a talent agency and we had 9 girls of various shapes and sizes turn up in one afternoon. Most were properly made-up, dressed according to the specs, answered questions intelligently and left behind their comp cards. However, 2 were quite sloppy and they brought some photographs - instead of comp cards - that were no better than mug shots. I honestly wonder how they could have gotten pass the talent agency’s selection criteria. I was so shocked when the cute, curly-haired one asked me what’s a comp card and where to get them done!

A comp card is a model’s major working tool. No model who consider himself/herself a professional will ever head off to an audition without a few in hand. For business folks, we use business cards. For models, the comp cards are their business card. Usually, one side will show a close-up face shot. The reverse will show at least 3 or more photographs of the model in different pose, made-up and attires to show off what he/she can achieve before the camera.

You can get comp cards done in a few ways. The easiest is to get the talent agency to arrange for you. Usually they have an in-house photographer to do the shots and a long-standing printer to do the postcard printing. The other method is to make your own arrangement by engaging a make-up artist, a hair stylist, a photographer and a printer. Get your photographer to help select the best shot and email the high resolution images to the printer for printing. Printers who specialize in comp card production will have a selection of card layouts for you to choose from. You can order as few as 25 comp cards or as many as 1,000 color comp cards or 500 black and white comp cards.

I believe it was Elle MacPherson who said she would not get out of her bed for less than $10,000. Well, for the budding models, I suggest that you don’t leave home without your comp cards.

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