The digital camera has all but killed off the photo development sector, with consumers now opting to digitally transfer files and store them on hard drives and sites that allow photo-sharing, such as Facebook.
But Geoff Hunt, co-founder of Sydney-based company Momento, is proving the digital photo revolution didn’t kill off every traditional photography product. He is convincing thousands of web-savvy shutterbugs that printing their pictures is still worth the effort, by providing a service that allows a user to upload their digital photos and publish them in self-designed, hardbound albums.
“My wife and I bought our first digital camera, and loved every aspect about the technology, but we wanted more than the standard 6×4 prints. All the technology involved had been reinvented, so we thought, why can’t we just reinvent the photo album?”
The company offers software for users to upload and edit their personal photographs. Customers then edit designs for an album, send the plans to the company which prints and then delivers the finished product.
“We saw an opportunity, and we were blown away with the reaction. Memories and photos are warm and fuzzy, and while we’ve seen new technology rise for viewing photos on TVs and computers, people still want to view their photos in a proper book.”
“There is a lot of benefit to having storage on these sites such as Facebook, and their success is great, but I wouldn’t want to have the challenges they face regarding privacy, setting which photos can be viewed by who, and so on.”
Momento recorded $3.3 million in revenue during 2007-08, with Hunt expecting a further 35% to 40% growth for the 2008-09 financial year.
Momento’s business model presents the company with a unique set of challenges. While it sells a printed traditional product, the company’s model is totally reliant on the technology of the digital camera and the internet.
At the same time, technology also remains the company’s biggest threat, with the rise of photo storage and sharing capabilities on smartphones and other portable devices, and photo sharing websites such as MySpace and Facebook.
But rather than steering clear of this online photo-sharing market, Hunt has gone after it.
“People do swap photos through Facebook, but we have our own Facebook application and page, and it drives a good amount of traffic to us. We do pay for advertising on both Facebook as well as Google.”
“We set up our Facebook advertising to be targetted towards younger females, between about 20 to 40 years of age. We are very specific in our advertising on Facebook.”
Hunt doesn’t view virtual storage solutions as a danger, but as an advantage. Because the company operates online, the more people with large collections of photos who visit these sites will be directed towards Momento.
“There’s a market for both formats. People want to share their photos, but it’s very hard to give a gift of digital photographs, it’s not the same as seeing a physical book. Having something on a shelf is far more enjoyable than clicking on something.”
Due to the company’s younger target demographic, Hunt says social media plays a large part in the company’s marketing strategy – but don’t get him started on Twitter.
“We’ve played around with Twitter, but a lot of our equivalents overseas have many thousands of followers, and there’s not as many people here to justify its use. If there were more users we’d be there, but I don’t think it suits us just yet.”
Hunt says the business operates on an “invisible” policy, in that customers shouldn’t need to think about what they are doing when playing with the company’s software.
“People are proud of what they’ve created and they want to share that, so we let them have as much freedom as they can. We are constantly looking at ways to make the software easy to us to get as many people on as possible.”
“It’s difficult to market that though, because with a product like ours that tries to convey a physical product that isn’t in a shop, it’s hard to sell. It’s like selling the flavour of a wine without letting you taste it.”
Hunt says another challenge is that the customers most likely to have printed photographs (seniors), are less likely to be web-savvy and comfortable with new technology.
“Digital cameras are not limited to young people, but it is a challenge to make the software less intimidating and to make it as easy to use as possible. But once people get on there, they find it easy. It’s just that first jump that’s hard.”
Hunt also says the company is making a conscious decision to steer clear of printing photographs on merchandise, such as coffee mugs or mouse pads, to help protect the quality of the brand.
“We are going to focus on products mainly associated with photography, so we’re sticking to photos and premium products. I think we will branch out a little, but not as far as some, where you can get anything printed anything invented. The brand is very important to us that way.”
“The only thing we will cross over to will be the professional market, and we run another business that services the corporate markets, weddings and so on. So we try to focus as much as we can on quality.”
The company has enjoyed strong growth since its launch, and the recent downturn hasn’t seen it slow down. Hunt suggests that during the downturn, more people tend to stay inside and focus on family oriented activities, and that may have helped business.
“We certainly haven’t suffered during the last nine months. Perhaps people have been staying inside and getting around to those projects that have been sitting around for a while, like stacks of photographs, that’s hard to identify.”
“But we have experienced growth, and we will continue to – the last year certainly hasn’t hurt us at all.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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