Shooting for Optimal Consumer Experiences

Shooting for Optimal Consumer Experiences

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For a company that has spent a big part of the last 10 years or so in transition mode, Eastman Kodak has had one of the more interesting views of the amazing changes the imaging industry has undergone during that time. A staple and picture of consistency during the film era, the company has embraced the changes brought on by the switch to digital technology and in some cases been a leader in these changes.

We recently had the opportunity to chat with Nicoletta Zongrone, General Manager of Retail Systems Solutions to get her take on a variety of topics, ranging from the effect the social network craze has had on imaging to where the mobile imaging world is headed.

Picture Business: Regarding the social media craze, how can imaging/mobile retailers best take advantage of these relatively new consumer imaging behaviors?

Zongrone: Technology is allowing consumers to capture and store digital images in a variety of places—on a hard drive, on removable media or in the cloud. The logical step for the industry is to allow consumers to access their images from practically any source, create something memorable like a photo book, and then send that order to their preferred fulfillment location over the web.

The key is to be where the consumer lives…and that means being online. With upwards of half-a-billion active users of photo-sharing sites, and more than three billion photos uploaded each month to Facebook alone, photo merchandisers should embrace connecting consumers to the fulfillment center.

Kodak is at the forefront of enabling retail connectivity. This year we've succeeded in connecting our KODAK Picture Kiosks, behind the counter lab systems and commercial grade digital presses to the Internet to make this possible. Kodak Gallery enables online storage, retrieval and sharing of high-resolution digital images from the Web. In addition, our Net-to-Retail solution allows consumers to access and use their images from practically any storage source connected to the Internet to create Kodak print products, and have those products produced at a nearby retailer.

Picture Business: What do you see as the key areas retailers need to focus on to grab a larger share of consumer attention?

Zongrone: First and foremost, you have to have a keen understanding of an increasingly tech and highly web savvy consumer. Today's “digital consumer” wants his and her services “my way…how, where and when I want it.” This '3.0' consumer also wants personalization, customization, high-quality content, ease of creation and exciting new ways to share.

So, to succeed as an industry, we have to create an exceptional consumer experience at a variety of touch points; in-store, online, and at the desktop, with a convergence of full-featured creative tools, simple intuitive ordering interfaces, plus multi-channel production and fulfillment options.

We also have to leverage all of the marketing channels to expose consumers to the possibilities for creating memorable photo keepsakes. New digital and social media channels are particularly exciting because they allow us to show consumers what their memories can look like in a premium product, and to promote word of mouth buzz in online consumer communities.

We also need to spark creativity at the point of sale. That's why KODAK Picture Kiosks feature a one-touch premium up sell application that creates animated product suggestions, showing consumers what their photos would look like in a KODAK Photo book.

The key is to decide what consumer you want to focus on, deploy the right solutions to address that need, and then execute smart strategies to reach and engage your targets. Another exciting opportunity is a completely new concept in premium photo products that Kodak has created. Our new PYNK Smart Print system is a patent-pending technology that makes printing and framing a matter of the consumer pressing a few simple buttons.

Picture Business: A recent PMA study claimed that only 40 percent of U.S. consumers know what a photo book is. How can the imaging industry best address creating greater awareness and demand for these newer products and services?

Zongrone: I suppose you could take a glass-half full view of that statistic. We have to have awareness-creating marketing strategies to address the non-familiar consumer; but we believe that there is a renaissance in photo merchandising. Even as the trend toward digital sharing continues, consumers are re-connecting with print images in exciting, meaningful and highly personalized ways to tell their stories. There is a real optimism about the future of photo printing, and it's backed by research. Analysts are forecasting 30 to 40 percent growth in creative photo services—upward to $12 billion in 2013.

Photo books are playing a big role in this growth trend, and now consumers can create high-quality photo books in a retail store at the touch of a button, something unheard of just a few years ago. These are high-grade products that have many of the features found in professionally designed and produced books. Consumers that want professionally produced books and albums, for signature life moments such as weddings, can design them from their desktops and have them produced at the fulfillment location of their choosing.

Having the capability to make beautiful books doesn't amount to much if we aren't out actively promoting the application; and that doesn't mean just running circulars in the Sunday paper. We have to show people what is possible. It's really a combination of experiential and word-of-mouth marketing. That is what we're focusing on in our marketing strategy. We firmly believe that once people see a photo book—be it created at the kiosk, online or by a professional—they'll get it and they'll buy it. So look for a lot of “let me show you…” elements in our marketing mix.

Picture Business: We keep hearing consumers say, “Make it easier for me to make all my digital still and video files actionable and more a part of my life.” Is the imaging industry responding to this demand?

Zongrone: I believe we are responding. We're working to create an exceptional consumer experience at a variety of touch points—in-store, online and at the desktop, with a convergence of full-featured creative tools, simple intuitive ordering interfaces, plus multi-channel production and fulfillment options.

For example, one of the biggest obstacles is that many great images—ones that would be perfect for a photo book—are trapped in either a digital still camera, inside a video clip, on an online sharing site or in a shoebox. So we have to make it easy for consumers to access those images and use them to create print products.

Getting images from still cameras is fairly simple. Video is another story. For example, U.S. consumers shoot more than four trillion video frames annually, but few have the tools to tap into those frames. Kodak's Video Snapshots module lets consumers easily select images from video clips, convert them into digital pictures in seconds, and then use them in print product.

Consumers upload billions of images to social media and photo-sharing sites…but then what? To address this challenge, we've come up with a solution that connects the kiosk to the major sharing sites—Kodak Gallery, Facebook and Picasa. In addition, desktop and web tools are allowing people to do so much more themselves so we have to be in tune with that dynamic. Our Net-to-Retail solution allows consumers to access and use their images from practically any storage source connected to the Internet to create Kodak print products, and have the product produced at a nearby retail location. On the pro-lab and commercial fronts, Kodak's Photo Website Hosting and Desktop Premium Product software links print systems to photo creation and ordering applications on the web and from the desktop. So again, we're covering all of the bases.

We're also working to solve common problems, like great shots that come about slightly less than ideal due to common shooting errors such as over exposure or backlighting. We add KODAK PERFECT TOUCH Technology in our cameras, at the kiosk and in our lab workflow solutions to help correct these problems. This year we've also introduced some special image solutions, like our Kodak Pet Eye Retouch. With 62 million pet households in the European Union alone, pets rank in the top four of all captured images. Pet eye glare, caused by flash photography, is a big problem. Kodak's Pet Eye Retouch allows pet owners to fix the flash glare problem instantly at the kiosk. So by solving that problem we open up the kiosk to millions of new customers.

And don't forget all of the heritage photos that are gathering dust in the shoebox. We need to make it fast, easy, safe and inexpensive for consumers to convert those to digital formats. That's why we developed rapid print scanning solutions that can be deployed at the kiosk or behind the counter.

So, do we have more work to do? Of course, but we're making great strides and we believe the uptake in specialty print products will be proof that our efforts are moving consumers and the industry in the right direction.

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