Meet ‘Jennifer’. She’s 25-45 years old. She’s probably a mother. She’s the ‘memory keeper’, the one who processes the family’s photos. 

Photobook specialist Momento Pro is determined to find as many Jennifers as possible. Every new Jennifer gets sold on quality. The company tells her: “We can give you the best place to store your precious memories,” not “We can give you the cheapest price”. To this end, Sydney-based Momento Pro prides itself on its excellent customer service, diverse product range and high-quality products, says managing director Geoff Hunt.

“I think the biggest thing about our brand is quality. We’re all about quality.”

The photobook market is increasingly congested with low-cost options from the big retailers, but Momento’s ‘quality, quality, quality’ ethos means it is unfazed by this pressure, adds sales and marketing manager David Watson. “We don’t try to compete with them. They’re price-driven. We feel we have a different product and sit at the opposite end of the market.”

The 35-staff printer avoids price wars. Watson says cutting costs would mean reducing quality and that would damage the brand. Momento has devoted a lot of time to educating the market that quality comes at a price and that more expensive products can offer better value than cheaper ones. The way that the big retailers can offer such bargain basement prices for photobook is by standardising the manufacturing process to a large degree, says Watson. The sausage factory approach might be cheaper and quicker, but it comes at the expense of quality. This has left a niche open for Momento. 

Watson estimates Momento could create 6,000-7,000 different types of photobook, across 12 different sizes, nine different page stocks and 40 different cover materials to go with a range of finishing options. The average order is about two copies. Unlike with long runs of standardised products, the odd botched copy can’t be tolerated – it may be the entire order.

“Everything that gets printed gets checked with the highest level of quality assurance,” says Hunt. “Every page of every book gets checked. That’s high labour, but we consider it essential.”

It’s not just quality of printing but also quality of service. The two go hand in hand, explains general manager Libby Jeffery. “We pride ourselves on serious, genuine customer service, so if anyone has a question and it does take a half-hour conversation, our customer service reps will take that time. We know from feedback that our customer service reps are one of our greatest assets.”

Jeffery notes that some companies hide phone numbers on their website or even don’t include it. Momento’s phone number is prominently displayed online. The logic is that the more comfortable people feel, the more likely they are to place orders.

Start with software

The ordering process begins with customers downloading Momento Pro’s free software. They can use manual or automated tools to combine their digital images with text, frames, backgrounds and thousands of other decorative embellishments. Once their PDF has been uploaded to the Momento Pro website, the back-end system decrypts the PDF, scales and imposes the pages, and applies barcodes and job numbers. It then sends the data through to an HP Indigo 7500 for internal pages and one of two Epson 9900s for printed covers or dust jackets.

Each product has a pre-defined path through the production facility. ICC colour management is used throughout and manual quality reviews occur at every station. Barcode scanners allow staff to automatically tag the related record as passed or failed. Only successful items progress to the next stage. Once passed, printed pages either go via a D&K Europa laminator or direct to an ODM Super Sewer XXL and a series of Schmedt casing and embossing equipment. The company enjoys the idea that a digital production line results in an old-fashioned printed product.

When it comes to these claims of quality, Momento is not just talk  – the company has the awards to prove it. Momento scored two wins at this year’s National Print Awards: ‘Best Digital Printing with Inkjet’ and the Fuji Xerox award. That followed two gold medals at the 2011 awards: ‘Most Innovative Use of Imaging in Print’ and ‘Best Digital Printing with Inkjet’.

Yet despite the plaudits, the company is an accidental printer. Momento outsourced its printing for its first four years, bringing it in-house in 2008. As part of the process, the business moved from Camperdown to Chippendale and doubled headcount.

Hunt, a self-described “serial inventor”, dreamt up the idea of a photobook business in 1999. He could see digital photography had a bright future and that people would want more from their images than just turning them into garden variety 6×4 photos to be filed away in albums. He realised there was money to be made in converting digital files into professional-looking books.

Momento spotted a gap in the market, and worked very hard to create it, he says. That took a bucketload of “sweat equity” for himself and his co-founders, Jeffery and chief technology officer James Whitwell.

Momento can’t claim to have been first to market with its photobook product, but it was right at the vanguard and in good company: Apple and Blurb just beat Momento Pro into the photobook market. The three companies developed their ideas independently, but happened to launch almost simultaneously, says Hunt.

The company initially focused on the technological side. However, it didn’t buy out-of-the-box software, as there was nothing that met all its requirements. Instead, it relied on in-house expertise and developed its own. Momento eventually added printing to its repertoire, because despite having no printing experience, the team wanted to exercise total control over quality assurance and product development. While it was “a massive learning curve”, it worked, and had the added benefit of reducing costs.

Hunt says Momento has made a point of sticking to its core business. “We’re not a commercial printer. We print photographs and almost nothing else.”

While commercial printing is doing it tough, the future for photobooks is bright, says Jeffery. That’s because about 80% of Australians don’t know what a photobook is. “When you consider the size of the market that hasn’t been tapped into yet, the future is great.”

Hunt adds: “There’s a lot of understanding, but there’s still a big chunk of the market that’s still waiting to meet their first photobook. The moment you win customers over is when they see their face or their friends’ faces on the cover.”

That provides Momento Pro with a two-pronged challenge. It has to convince the knowledgeable 20% to buy more photobooks – or even their first – and it has to enlighten the 80%. Marketing is mainly conducted through word of mouth, social media and television, says Watson. TV works well because it sells people on images and emotions – just like Momento Pro. On the flipside, the company’s early foray into radio advertising failed.

Refer a friend

There has also been what Hunt calls a “wildly successful” referral campaign. Cards are placed into photobooks so eager first-time customers can share with their friends the concept they’ve just discovered. 

Many of these excited new customers are likely to be ‘Jennifers’, a term dreamt up by the Photo Marketing Association International following research into the market. Momento speaks to Jennifers in their own language, Watson says. That might mean tempting them with the sort of beautiful baby photos that Jennifers would love to have in their own photobooks. But these photos can’t be too striking, otherwise the idea crosses from aspirational into unattainable. While the consumer market is mainly female, the professional market is evenly split between the genders. Professionals constitute a small minority of Momento Pro’s customers, but provide 35% of its revenue, as they place larger orders of, say, 200 copies and provide more repeat business.

Professionals demand high quality and the ability to differentiate their works, says Jeffery. That’s why it is important for Momento Pro to provide so many options. During the company’s eight-year history, there has been a concerted effort to educate professionals on the complexity of colour management and the challenge of producing such a refined product.

Less automation means lengthier production times. Orders take from four to 21 days – 14 is the average, says Jeffery. “We’re always pushing to reduce the time because we’re competing with companies that can turn around a book in seven days.”

Hunt says professionals are happy with the quality offered by a digitally printed photobook, but always want more. Digital machines have steadily improved since the company was founded – and both Jeffery and Hunt were at Drupa to check out what is coming next.

As quality has increased, the cost of tiny runs has decreased, says Hunt. Momento Pro has also undergone its own digital advance: it swapped its four-year-old HP Indigo 5500 for a 7500 in November.

More change might be on the way, says Hunt. “We’re a one-press company at the moment, but we’re nearing the stage where we’re going to have to upscale.”

Momento Pro thinks of itself as being a little bit different – from the carpet on the floor of its production room to the Donkey Kong arcade machine in its break room. Hanging proudly in the office is a portrait of Kramer from TV show Seinfeld, in honour of the episode in which the character designed a coffee table book about coffee tables that had foldable wooden legs so it could be turned into a coffee table.

Momento Pro also prides itself on being forward-thinking. One way in which it is trying to lead the industry is environmentally. The company became carbon neutral in 2010, which “helps to reinforce that we’re not like other companies,” says Hunt. It’s not a gimmick, although it is good for business, he adds.

Watson says that while few customers will make purchasing decisions based solely on the environment, green credentials ease the selling process. He offers two pieces of supporting evidence. Firstly, about 40% of customers accept the option of having the cost of their carbon emissions added to their bill. Secondly, the environment section on the company’s website attracts significant traffic.

A forward-thinking company is also one that develops new products to stay ahead of the pack, says Hunt. “To be in this game at the moment, you always have to be thinking, ‘what next?’ We do have some new products coming up in the next few months.” 

(He’s reluctant to reveal what these are, although he confirms they will be based around the company’s core business.)

One recent innovation is Momento Shop. Previously, customers could only order books of their own photos. But since last September it’s been possible to order other people’s photobooks.

That has turned Momento Pro into a quasi-publisher. Customers can now use the company to make, sell and mail their photobooks. Print (and distribute) on demand is an attractive proposition for anyone reluctant to store hundreds of copies in their garage before posting them one by one – assuming they all get sold. Currently, professionals are the only ones able to supply content, but consumers will get the chance within a few months.

Momento also sells calendars, greeting cards and diaries. These can function as ‘gateway’ products for customers who don’t understand photobooks. They’re more willing to try something new if they’ve already bought something they’re familiar with, says Watson.

The big retailers can also act as gateways. Some people will opt for something cheap and simple when taking their first step into photobooks. They may then upgrade to Momento Pro having familiarised themselves with the concept.

If Momento Pro is feeling any pressure from its larger rivals now, competition may become even more heated in the next few years. One likely development is the rise of photobook kiosks. As the technology arrives to manufacture photobooks in smaller spaces and with quicker turnaround times, it may not be long before mall visitors are popping into one-hour kiosks in between the rest of their shopping.

But Jeffery claims not to be worried. Anything that came out of a kiosk would have to be basic and plain, she says, which is the opposite of the niche Momento Pro has carved for itself.

Another possible threat for the company is the emergence of even bigger rivals. Despite being less than a decade old, Watson predicts the photobook market is likely to consolidate, which may mean mergers. He feels the moment has passed for new players to enter. The industry is already too established and complicated for them to make money, he says.

In the meantime, Momento Pro will continue targeting the millions of Australians who are yet to discover photobooks and continue preaching its message of quality.

The plan is to keep growing the business… one Jennifer at a time.

Factfile

Established: 2004

Location: Chippendale, Sydney

Equipment: HP Indigo 7500, two Epson Stylus 9900s and two HP Z6100s

Staff: 35

Turnover: $5 million

Sector: Photobook and photo merchandise

Business Briefing

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