September 11, 2025 • 35 mins
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The traditional world of school photography is undergoing a remarkable transformation, blending time-honored practices with cutting-edge technology and data-driven marketing approaches. In this revealing conversation, Tim McCain, Chief Evangelist of Captura, and Michelle Federschneider, VP of Commerce, take us behind the scenes of this evolution.
McCain shares the fascinating journey of unifying multiple photography platforms (ImageQuix, PhotoLynx, Skylab, and others) into Captura's comprehensive solution. "It's like a big marriage of different families with different ways of thinking," he explains, detailing both the challenges and benefits of creating a unified approach to school photography technology.
The conversation takes a particularly interesting turn when Federschneider, who brings a fresh perspective from her 17 years at Vistaprint, reveals how data-driven marketing is revolutionizing parent engagement. Through rigorous testing and parent feedback studies, she's discovered counterintuitive insights about what actually drives purchases. "80% of our traffic comes from mobile," she explains, "so messaging needs to be punchy and to the point." Her approach has transformed traditional marketing assumptions in the industry, showing how simplified messaging often outperforms elaborate designs.
Yearbooks emerge as a compelling opportunity for photographers who are already capturing school images but missing out on additional revenue streams. McCain passionately advocates for the enduring value of print in an increasingly digital world: "Mom can take photographs of their kid themselves, but they can't create a yearbook." This authenticity becomes increasingly precious in an era of AI-generated content, with McCain noting how people are "longing for stuff that isn't made up."
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Manning (00:02):
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing, andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:18):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we've got a twofer.
We've got two guests.
We've got Tim McCain, the chiefevangelist of Captura, and
Michele Fenderschneider, who isthe VP of Commerce, and she
comes from outside the industryinto school photography.
So we're going to be talkingabout yearbooks, we're going to
(00:40):
be talking about AI, we'll betalking about technology, and
it's going to be a greatconversation.
Hi Tim, Hi Michele, how are youtoday?
How are you, gary?
We're going to be talking aboutAI, we'll be talking about
technology, and it's going to bea great conversation.
Hi Tim, how are you Michele?
How are you?
Michele Federschneider (00:48):
today.
How are you, gary?
We're doing good.
Hi, good to be here.
Gary Pageau (00:50):
Captura has been around in another form for a lot
of years and you announcedearlier this year the name
change and the introduction tothe market of the Captura name
and also kind of combining allthe platforms into one singular
platform, if you will, thedisparate parts from the various
acquisitions.
How's that been going, Tim?
It's been going great.
Tim McCain (01:10):
We took ImageQuix, PhotoLynx, Foto Merchant, and
simple Photo, all thosebusinesses over the last two,
three years and combined andtook the best things out of all
of them and put them into onecomplete platform.
When we did that, we wanted torebrand on the new identity
(01:31):
which is Captura One new nameand one new platform and one new
experience for our customers.
Like customer-centric .
Now, with all those and thefeatures that we have in the
system, we've again, again,taken all the best features out
and building and we'recontinuing to build and we're
all about making our customersmore money or more, anything,
(01:51):
more time well, that's sort ofthe slogan there right make,
more is sort of absolutely withthat yeah, so I'm sure it's been
completely seamless and there'sbeen no hiccups through this
whole.
Yeah, you know it was easy, noproblems, like it was just yeah
all the customers love it.
It's been sure, sure yeah, no,it's, it's been.
Um, it's been an uphill battle.
It's been, it's been a road.
(02:12):
I mean we had, I had, uh, photolinks for 20 some years and
then just getting that and andtaking that experience into
image quicks and then meldingthose cultures right, and then
we took photo merchant anotherculture that had SimpleP hoto
with them and melding that andthen, along with sky lab, which
is now enhanced right, right,all those people like that, so
(02:34):
it's like a big marriage right,of a bunch of different families
that come from different waysof thinking and I think we've
done good at we have a thingcalled the capture away playbook
, a Bible that we live by, right, and the way we treat people
and I think everybody's comingaround, it's starting to get.
It was rough, there's no line,and there were some casualties
in the war.
Gary Pageau (02:57):
Was there anything that, when you were looking at
putting this wholeconglomeration together, where
your perception changed, whereit's like you thought it was
going to go one way and it wenta different way, based on either
technology or customer input?
Can you think of like one thingthat kind of went in a
(03:17):
different direction?
Tim McCain (03:19):
Yeah, one of the things I could say is the way
that we approach the yearbookindustry.
That was different.
We had PlicBooks and we'verevamped that and it's Captura
Yearbooks now.
It's not just a name change;there's a bunch of stuff.
But I thought the new PhotoLynxproducts but were considered
legacy because they were on theold platform would continue on
(03:40):
In the PlicGo the PlicBooksworld.
That changed on in the click gothe click books world.
That changed and we went intothis yearbook model.
That is quite different than wehad thought originally as well
as the way that we go after thecustomer experience and customer
marketing.
Quite frankly, like withMichele, the customer marketing
way we used to do things, andthat was a total shock to me,
(04:02):
like again, I don't want tospeak for Michele, but she we
jumped in and we're like she waslooking at it and going why are
you guys doing stuff like this?
You know an outside perspectivebecause we have these 25 year
blinders of school pictures inthe industry.
Michele came in with fresh eyesand was you know it's been.
It's that changed the way welook at a lot of stuff.
Like Gary, we didn't even knowbefore Michele got here.
(04:22):
To be quite honest, what anemail yielded.
Right, send out an email andMichele's like we got all those
numbers.
Now we got all that data.
She knows exactly what peopleare doing in the shop.
She, she does ab testing here.
I'm still on all your stuff.
Michele Federschneider (04:37):
That's okay, I was gonna say I mean, I
think it's it's.
It's been a and I've only beenhere since january, but I think
it's been a continuation of whathas worked well in the past.
But we've gotten smarter, sowe're investing in our data
infrastructure and reallyunderstanding what's working
well, building and refining ourbest practices from that in
(04:59):
addition to just automating.
So, like we've been doingthings you know that work really
well.
But how do we, you know,automate things like cart
abandonment emails or some ofthe things that can be really
dynamic based on the parentshopping behavior?
And so it's good for the studiobecause some of those work
(05:19):
really well and it's also goodbecause, you know, it gives us a
little time back to focus onsome other more critical, like
high value work operationally.
So yeah there's been a lot ofgood progress and I think, more
than you know, just building onthe foundation that was already
there and getting a little,maybe, smarter with the ways
that we're working.
Gary Pageau (05:40):
So talk a little bit about where you came from,
your background and what you'rekind of bringing to the volume
photography space.
Michele Federschneider (05:48):
Sure.
So I spent almost 17 years atVistaprint, working across
mainly marketing, merchandisingand product management.
So Vistaprint is a solutionthat focuses on design and
printing for small businesses,but we also have consumer lines
or stationary photo gifts.
(06:09):
So there are a lot ofinteresting parallels from how I
worked on the e-commerce andthe shopping experience at
Vistaprin and how thattranslates to just how parents
come and buy photos online.
There's been a lot ofinteresting parallels to bring
for this world to optimize.
And at the end of the day, Ithink one of the nice things in
(06:30):
the last six months or so iswe've really tried to champion
the parents' feedback and reallybring that to life within our
organization.
So where are they getting stuckin the shopping experience?
What are the things thatthey're looking for?
What are their key?
What are the things thatthey're looking for?
What are?
their key points, the feedbackthat they're sharing with us,
for us to both understand that,to then cater our shopping
(06:53):
experience or make tweaks tomake that easier.
Gary Pageau (06:57):
Sure.
Michele Federschneider (06:58):
Parents are shopping online all the time
, and so the solution that webring has to be really emotional
, because it's usually theirchild's image or a family
member's image, but also reallyfamiliar and easy, and so it's
really finding the balancebetween there, and a lot of that
is what I did at Vistaprint, soit's been kind of a nice
transition and a new industrywhere there's a ton of
(07:21):
opportunity.
Tim McCain (07:22):
And Gary, she's not just guessing at stuff.
So this is what I love aboutnot just the data and the
analysis that she brought withher, but she hired a firm that
went out and did, you know,shopping on our website and gave
us feedback about what theyreal moms going in, real moms
and dads ordering pictures andthen giving us video feedback.
(07:42):
Yeah, that they said this wastoo hard to do.
This was not.
This was easy.
This, you know, looking atwhere the rage clicks are, like
I think you had Pindoimplemented with a lot of this
stuff and right and some of thetesting.
Michele Federschneider (07:54):
Yeah.
Tim McCain (07:55):
So this is real time data with real parents and
we're not just having a panel orwe're not just guessing at what
, like we've done in this foryears.
We've like we think mom wantsto do this.
Right, we know now.
We've been interviewing her forseveral weeks now.
Gary Pageau (08:11):
So one of the things I think that's different,
that's changed over the lastfive years, is there's been more
direct access to mom mom, ifyou want to call that the
customer than there has been inthe past.
Because you know, in the badold days of volume photography,
the school controlled thecontact with the parent and that
kind of goes by the wayside,because this is all.
(08:32):
This is kind of like a newapplication of a modern approach
, if you will Right.
Can you give an example of whenyou're like doing A testing
with uh, with an email, the kindof things that are resonating
with with mom that may, in theold way, they might have thought
it was the other way yeah, so Imean things like subject line
(08:56):
testing, so like what's going toget them to open the email and
look at um the email like justengage?
Michele Federschneider (09:03):
and then what are the types of tactics
that will get them to click tosee their image, to see the
images online?
It may sound overly simplified,but the more simple and direct
our messaging is typically thebetter response rate that we get
from mom.
80% of our traffic is coming toour site on mobile, so it needs
to be punchy and to the point.
(09:26):
Coming to our site on mobile, soit needs to be punchy and to
the point.
And so you know, sometimes inthe past we had had these really
big images that were verybranded to the studios and,
while beautiful, the really coremessage would be pushed down
pretty far on the page.
And so having, like the buttonsand the calls to action above
the fold, having any discountmessaging higher up on the page,
(09:47):
really reducing image size,both for, you know, ease of
scannability but also loadingwithin different devices, has
been really helpful, and sowe've been able to fine tune a
lot of those through reallyiterative rounds of A-B testing
to get to what we deem likehere's a best practice for each
(10:07):
of our email templates, based ontesting, and so we can feel
really confident as we implementthose with all the studios,
existing or new, that they'regetting the best experience and
we continue to refine that Evenin the fall.
We're continuing to test justwith this volume and to
continuously learn, so thatthat's been really insightful.
Gary Pageau (10:28):
That's kind of counterintuitive, though, right,
because, at least for ourindustry, because they always
want the image to be the hero.
Right, because that's theproduct.
Is you know that great pictureof your preschool or the great
picture of a middle school, orwhatever?
Michele Federschneider (10:43):
Yeah.
Gary Pageau (10:43):
And but that doesn't necessarily have the
call to action very clear.
Michele Federschneider (10:49):
Yeah, and it's.
You know, we've found it'sdifferent, spinning the message
differently based on where youare in the life cycle.
So like your photos online is agreat example of that.
Like you want to see the image,it's this big reveal moment.
That's when maybe the picturecan really be the hero, versus
as you get into some of theseasonal campaigns through the
(11:11):
holidays.
Maybe it's highlighting certaintypes of products that might
incentivize to you know peopleto come back and purchase again.
Right, and being able to targetthose audiences in different
ways with different messaging,can be really impactful.
Gary Pageau (11:26):
So, tim, One of the things you mentioned earlier
was yearbooks, and that's beenan area of the marketplace that
has really been through a lot inthe last year or so A lot of
changes with some of thesoftware platforms, a lot of
changes with some of the vendorsand, you know, kind of the
emphasis.
It seems almost to be likethere's a bigger emphasis now on
it because it's another printopportunity for the volume
(11:50):
studios, especially those whoare doing, you know, preschool
or elementary school, they'rekind of the younger grades.
I think there's an opportunitythere for like a soft cover kind
of thing.
What are you seeing?
Because that's kind of whereyou came from right.
The yearbook is sort of yourgenesis into this business.
Tim McCain (12:08):
Yeah, we were with PhotoLynx, we were with Workflow
and then we entered into theyearbook software market,
probably about 10 years ago, andthe biggest change, gary, is
people are realizing that thoseare your photos that you took.
Why aren't you making money offthem?
Right?
So the big yearbook companiesof the past, they used to just
hand over your PSPA CD and theywould make a yearbook and that
(12:30):
was that.
And there's no way for thephotographer to make any money
off of their you know, creativeimages, right?
So now people are like gettinghip to that and they're, they're
creating their own books andthere's easy ways to do it.
There's companies out there thatare that are publishers or
aggregators of that and thesoftware just makes it that much
easier.
You know, we have our, ourCaptbook software.
(12:51):
That's just so simple and easyto use, especially for what
you're talking about, those 44page saddle stitch.
You know, easy books for theelementary school.
We crush it and you can send itoff to any number of places to
get it handled.
One like a studio source, or,you know, district Photo does
some, and there's, you know,Strawbridge Studios and
Interstate, and all those guysdo a lot of you know printing of
(13:15):
those type of books.
And if you're going to, ifyou're going to take the image,
why not capture the most amountthat you can?
Because you're doing a lot forfree.
You're going to those freeshoots and taking yearbook
photos, right?
They're going to the footballgame and capturing candidates
that go into the yearbook, andthat's somebody's time, that's
(13:35):
somebody's time, that'ssomebody's money, that's
somebody's effort and weshouldn't just only get a part
of the picture package.
They should get a part of theyearbook.
Gary Pageau (13:39):
So, like you said, there's been a lot of changes in
the marketplace with some ofyour competitors.
Tim McCain (14:02):
They all got good software.
We feel we have the bestsoftware.
We also are a software company.
We're not a photography companythat is putting out software.
You know that tends to eithercater to the company that
created its needs, right, andnot everyone else.
We're taking everybody'sfeedback, also when they're busy
(14:22):
printing their yearbooks andany other competitor.
I'm speaking in general terms.
Right, we're not.
We're a software company, right.
We're busy with our customers'needs, not our own.
Gary Pageau (14:35):
Okay, so what are some of the things when you talk
about the value of a yearbook,right, that will help grow the
market.
How can we, as an industry,convey some of the value of a
yearbook in a printed product?
Because I think that'ssomething that, as an industry,
we're not doing.
Tim McCain (14:55):
Yeah, look, I'm a member of SPOA, a board member
of SPOA.
I believe in the tradition ofschool photography and yearbooks
, right, a hundred percent.
And I think that you knowseveral companies have tried
digital books, putting them onyour phone, all that type of
stuff.
You're not going to have thisphone, you're not going to have
that media, but you can havethat print.
(15:17):
Everybody's running to theunderneath their bed and pulling
out the shoe box and they'regrabbing photos.
They're grabbing their yearbookfrom 30 years ago.
They're bringing that to thereunion.
They're not popping out thephone and saying, look at Jimmy,
when he, you know it's so, it'sthe traditional print.
That is that is so important.
(15:37):
And I personally feel thatyearbooks are the way that we're
going to tie Look mom, mom ordad right, I keep saying mom,
because 85% of the purchasersare are the mothers.
But mom or dad can take aphotograph of their kid
themselves.
They can get a damn goodaccidental headshot if they want
it to right.
(15:57):
Sure, they can't create ayearbook.
They don't have the permissionto put everybody else's photos
in there for that child'smemories later on in life.
And I believe through yearbookswe're tying the tradition of
school photography back to thatright.
So I believe yearbooks issomething that they can't do on
their own, and since they can'tdo it, they're on their own.
We piggyback on that withschool photography.
(16:19):
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, and I firmlybelieve that we're having.
We're seeing a resurgence rightnow where people are going away
from.
I mean, I just talked to a kidthat's taking film in college.
Right, we're going back to thistraditional stuff and people
have a longing for stuff thatisn't made up, it's not
generative AI, it's not fake,it's not phony, there's no
(16:42):
filters, right.
I want to see my child in theyearbook with the braces and the
pimples, and this is mepersonally.
I'm not knocking anybody thatwants to have, you know, but I
want to see how goofy they werewhen they were goofy.
You know, that's part of the.
That's part of the experience.
Gary Pageau (16:59):
Right, I mean you are offering the enhancement, we
are, we have that.
We have that because somepeople want that.
Tim McCain (17:04):
Some people, and I get it.
Me personally, though, I air onthe traditional side of stuff.
Maybe that's because I'm 52years old, right, but I also I
truly believe that we're gettingmore and more in that realm and
people are going back to that.
There's a resurgence of peoplewanting, longing for the
traditional, as we have thismade, especially with the
generative ai, and you can fakeanything and deep fakes and all
(17:27):
these videos where you don'tknow what's true, and all this
other stuff we can have thereality of a print on a yearbook
, and it's a beautiful thing.
Gary Pageau (17:36):
You know, one of the things I think you're
touching on is sort of a thingthat touches on various segments
of the industry.
Right, like you said earlier,people are shooting film.
Right, kodak's back to makingfilm seven days a week, you know
, yeah, which is crazy when youthink about it.
But that gets back to, I think,where the value of school
photography or even vacationphotos and all this is.
(17:59):
You know the authenticity of it.
Right, you can have AI generate, you know, pictures of your
trip to Paris, but what mattershere are the pictures you took,
right.
Right, and I think thatauthentic piece is sort of
something you know.
Technology is great.
We all love technology, right,there's nothing wrong with it,
but it's just a tool to get youto whatever that memory is.
Tim McCain (18:25):
So look, gary, there's guys like Ed Monahan
that 15 years ago told us youknow prints packages, and I
can't remember what else he said.
It was print packages andscreens.
Yeah, so Ed used to preach allthat.
I think that Ed was way aheadof his time, smart guy, way
ahead of his time.
Yeah, right, so we're there now.
Right, we can have all thatcontent you're talking about.
(18:47):
We can have the AI generatedcontent.
We can have content from mom.
We can generated content.
We can have content from mom.
We can have professionalcontent.
All exist in the same spot,like how beautiful is that.
We're getting there right now.
Right now, we're messing withstuff that in captura, where you
can upload, you know, theparent stuff into a professional
package, you get theprofessional print right right
and then the photographer getsto participate in creating
(19:10):
something with the parent rightand you.
we do that now with yearbooks,with the Candid Uploader.
Parents can upload, you know,whatever they want into that and
somebody can put that in thebook.
So I think that getting thereand what Ed had foretold so many
years ago is coming to fruitionright now.
Gary Pageau (19:27):
Yeah, I think you're right, Because I think
the ability to customize ayearbook makes it even better,
because I always thought one ofthe knocks on the yearbook was,
you know, especially at the highschool level right, if you had
a big school, you might be in amugshot and you might be in a
teen picture, but you may not beanywhere else in the book
(19:49):
Because either they didn't getyour picture or the photo editor
didn't like you, or the picturewas terrible or whatever.
But the ability to customize itwith either the person's own
photos is, I think, a hugeopportunity that I think needs
to be leveraged.
Tim McCain (20:05):
Yeah, I agree, because otherwise you've got
just pretty popular people likeMichele dominating the book and
us ugly guys.
Don't get in it, gary.
Gary Pageau (20:19):
That's right.
So, Michele, from an e-commercestandpoint, you are charged
with conveying this messageright?
You've got to take this fairlycomplex technology of hey, you
can change the people'scomplexion a little bit, you can
change the backgrounds, you cando some of these things, but
you can be able to convey that.
Do some of these things, butyou can be able to convey that.
What are your thoughts on thechallenge of the industry on
that?
Michele Federschneider (20:38):
Yeah, I think the role that we have to
play as a software company andas a platform is to balance all
of the wonderful aspects ofcustomization, but to do that in
a way that is very simple forthe parent to execute.
And so, you know, on our corewebsite it's the things like
(20:58):
different backgrounds, differentimage editing options, right,
like, how do we do that in a waywhere it's actually fun, right
To like try out these differentthings to see how they're going
to look and to get the photothat you want.
And we're looking at the samething for yearbooks.
So you know, we have a portionof our business that are, that's
(21:20):
, using our yearbook e-commercesolution, so it all has the
ability to purchase books, tohave things like add-ons for
parents to.
You know, you mentioned, ayearbook might only have a
school photo, but parents canput, you know, half page or full
page notes or things like thatfor the students in there, and
so that's a nice option.
(21:42):
And so there's additionalfeatures that kind of make
things feel more personal, has abenefit for the studio, because
, you know, you can personalizeyour cover, you can add the name
and the year.
And so now, personalize yourcover, you can add the name and
the year, and so now thatyearbook feels much more
specific to the student and youknow it kind of incentivizes the
parents to buy because it's notjust the generic thing that
(22:02):
they might pick up in the office, which would also be an option.
But you know we can.
You know the studios can make alittle more money off that.
We give the parent a reallyeasy shopping experience and so
also the ability to market tothem.
That's something that we'rereally leaning into this year is
all of the things I talkedabout that we're doing for our
(22:22):
core business, for marketing.
We can also talk to parentsabout yearbooks and remind them
when it's yearbook season.
You know you don't have toremember the flyer that the
school hung on the door butthing in your inbox that's
really easy to order from, andso we're hoping studios see a
real benefit from that as well.
Gary Pageau (22:41):
Now in the marketing piece, you know.
So you probably have a lot ofcompanies, customers who are you
know, we'll just do it.
We have that relationship, wecan do it, we're smart people.
And then you have another groupof people who surely need all
the help that they can get.
How are you set up to kind ofhandle those two dichotomies?
I imagine you get a lot ofpeople who you know either they
(23:03):
haven't done a lot of yearbooksor they're trying to get into
the, you know, trying to growthat piece of their business.
Other people have said you know, hey, you know, we've got our
own printing plant where we'vebeen set up for this for the
years.
We don't care.
What's your approach there?
How are you communicating withthe customers?
Michele Federschneider (23:17):
Yeah, I mean, I think you know we have a
couple of phases of justthere's some awareness of like,
hey, we're doing yearbooks.
Do you know the value as acustomer that a yearbook could
bring to your business?
And conveying those numbers.
And, to Tim's point, you'realready doing the work and so if
there's an opportunity for youto get in with the school and to
(23:38):
offer this as a, you know, anaddition to your business,
that's a really nice gentlemarket and we're really trying
to aim the customers with.
You know some of that, likewhat are the key messages?
Like how do you go to theschool and make this pitch?
And you know what are thereally compelling aspects of you
as a photographer, but also thesoftware that you can leverage
(23:59):
from us to make that case, andso we have a number of resources
online and then we're reallyworking with our customers
individually to, you know, helpthem get those contracts.
Gary Pageau (24:10):
Now, tim, from a technology standpoint you
mentioned.
You know you've been droppingthe Gen AI buzzwords and all
those fun things, but you've gotto be looking at it from a
standpoint of you know you canput all this stuff in there, but
if it's not used, or if it'sused poorly or terribly, you
know you've got challenges there.
How are you evaluating whattechnology to put in there?
Tim McCain (24:31):
Yeah, so that's a good question.
We have a great team.
We have a great product teamright now and we use a lot of
parental feedback, a lot ofphotographer feedback.
Our product team gets togetherand they do their own testing.
Yeah, there's a lot of new techthat you can put in there.
We have our machine learningteam, like we were talking about
AI.
We have that in-house.
We don't outsource any of thatstuff.
(24:51):
We already got those guys right.
So our product team looks atthat.
They say, hey, what about this?
We have other committees thatlook at stuff and go, yeah, that
would be good for this or thatwouldn't.
And then we also shop it aroundwith some of our bigger clients
that use yearbooks in oursoftware to create them right.
The big thing that, gary, Ithink that we have above
(25:16):
everyone else is we don't create, you know, spoa or PSPA
yearbook disks.
When you put it into ourCaptura system and you use our
Captura yearbooks, it's alreadythere.
So school logs on all the panelpages are built automatically,
because that's one of the bigthings that we have on all the
panel pages are builtautomatically, because that's
one of the big things that wehave Any subject info data that
they need to change around.
Instead of McCain they saidMcCain's with an S right.
(25:36):
They can do it right there andyou don't have to go back to
your photographer to make achange, to get them a new disc.
All that stuff is just rightthere and we're completely
online with all of it.
Gary Pageau (25:44):
Yeah, and that alone is a big thing when, I'm
sure, because you know thingshappen right, like you said an
extra s gets printed, an extrakey gets held down in the input
area and it's you know it's.
It's crazy on picture day,right, trying to capture all
that stuff yeah, any number ofthings.
Tim McCain (26:00):
And when it goes through our system again, we
know from school photography,one of the biggest pain points
for years is creating those.
You know I call them discsbecause I'm 52 years old.
But those uploads, right, thoselinks, right, yeah, you know
Dropbox or however else theywere getting them from the
school to Jostens, herff Jones,taylor, any of those other
publishing companies, right, andthe years are now.
(26:22):
You just open up your Captureyearbooks and it's there.
So the school gets a link withtheir name, you know, and they
go and they create a passwordand their school's already
uploaded into the system.
They can start working on theirbook right away.
There's no waiting.
Gary Pageau (26:34):
Oh yeah, that's really not jimmy, that's james,
and then we can they can changeit right right and which has
never been able to be done soare you focused only on a print
product, or are you going to beoffering some sort of electronic
version, just to even justoffer it?
Or do you think it's just notsomething the market really
(26:55):
wants?
Tim McCain (26:56):
All right.
So you never say never and I'mone voice in a bunch, so we have
.
We have a big team here.
I personally think that it'sbeen done and it's flopped
several times over.
Yeah, it's getting back to myoriginal statement of preserving
school photography andpreserving the tradition of
prints.
Erin Manning (27:16):
Right.
Tim McCain (27:17):
Big thing that we do and we believe in.
I mean, we support the SPO andthat's what SPO is all about.
Right, the School Photographersof America.
So I can't say that like Iwould be jumping up and down and
saying let's do that If theproduct team brought it over and
said this is what we want to do, but again, I'm one vote in
about seven or eight.
Gary Pageau (27:35):
Yeah, I just like I said, I've seen those various
things and I've seen the demosand all and it seems like cool
stuff, but it's almost like it'strying to solve a problem that
doesn't exist.
Tim McCain (27:48):
Exactly, exactly and it's.
It's also when I start thinkingabout this stuff.
I, you know, I think abouteight tracks and VHS and all the
media changes and Prince Vinceis a whole thing.
Right, we've had Prince in the1800s.
So, I don't like it again, LikeI wouldn't be the first person
to do it.
Gary Pageau (28:04):
But again, you never say never If there's a
market demand, and it startedhappening we would participate
in that, and I don't think itwould be a replacement for a
yearbook.
Tim McCain (28:15):
It might be an add-on Additive would be a good
thing.
I mean, we've seen it probablyfive or six times throughout the
last 10 years.
People pop up with stuff andthey pop up with digital ID
cards and then you know, with aswoop of a pen they say you
can't bring your phone to school, right, and then that's that,
right.
So we don't know.
I just the print media isalways going to be around.
Gary Pageau (28:37):
Right.
Yeah, it's interesting youmentioned that about the school
ID thing, because that's exactlywhat's happening, right.
And in Michigan we've gotseveral school districts here
who have said nope, we don'twant the distraction, we're
going to take the kids' phoneswhen they walk in.
Tim McCain (28:50):
Right.
So if we have school IDs on ourphones, digital IDs, what
happens then?
Right.
Gary Pageau (28:55):
Right, exactly.
Tim McCain (28:56):
And the school's not making the laws, the lawmakers.
I mean there's a lot of nuancedstuff, but PVC cards aren't
getting taken away and neitheris the paper print of a yearbook
.
Gary Pageau (29:09):
Yeah, it is.
It is interesting.
I was sort of always.
It's coming back around againnow.
A lot of schools are capturingvideo with their content that
they're doing.
Is there anything you can dowith that in the print format?
I've tried.
I've seen different people.
Tim McCain (29:23):
You know they're doing screen grabs out of video
and they're trying to dodifferent things with qr codes
to launch videos yeah, I don'tknow if you remember this about,
uh, 15 years ago, I had aprogram called jump seat.
Yeah, we put qr codes intoyearbooks, yeah, right, and you
uploaded the video to a websiteand then you would put your
phone over that qr code and thenan ar marker would be there.
(29:46):
I actually ed monahan, was whokicked this off for me when I
went to one of his things at DP2years ago, and so we created
Jumpseat and you could put a ARmarker with a QR tag and it
would pop up with the wrestlingvideo on the wrestling page,
right, I think it was a littlebit again ahead of its time.
I think there's companies likeFlam or RMBR right now.
Gary Pageau (30:07):
Yeah, we're doing that.
Tim McCain (30:08):
Yep, Chris Garcia, they're doing that, and I think
you could actually do ityourself too.
There's a lot of different waysto go about it, but that's cool
stuff too.
But I'm going to go back alittle bit again is what happens
when that website's down?
What happens when the QR code?
It has to be additive, it can'tbe in supplement of right.
Gary Pageau (30:28):
At least you've got that print right To kick off
that video.
Tim McCain (30:32):
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, I think it's cool, it'sall neat stuff, right?
Gary Pageau (30:36):
So Michele from a marketing standpoint.
You know there's a lot going onin kind of the education world.
That's kind of a challenge,right.
I mean I was talking tosomebody the other day about the
volume photography business.
They said, well, it can't growthat much because they aren't
building any more schools.
So to have healthy growth in anindustry, you know, where are
(31:00):
you seeing opportunities forgrowth?
Michele Federschneider (31:02):
We look at a couple of different factors
.
So one is just like are wegetting people to participate?
So how many, you know, are theybuying?
Gary Pageau (31:10):
Expansion rate, buy rate, yeah, Exactly the classic
yeah.
Michele Federschneider (31:13):
Yeah, and then I think the bigger
opportunities that we're seeingis in how we can increase that
average order value.
So I talked about thesimplicity of the experience.
That's something we're leaninginto, like how do you make it
easier to get the second or thethird product in the single
session without needing torecustomize or go through the
(31:34):
whole process again?
Tim McCain (31:36):
Right.
Michele Federschneider (31:36):
And certainly there are other, you
know, new products.
There are other ways that canbe really impactful for average
order value.
And then the third is justmultiple purchases, and so
that's something again thatwe're really focused on, even
for buyers.
So let's say you've come andyou've bought a print, but over
the holidays, like, can we talkabout the specialty items we
(31:58):
have, or the card?
Gary Pageau (31:59):
Yeah, sort of the remarketing, retargeting kind of
thing, yeah.
Michele Federschneider (32:02):
Exactly like the mugs for Mother's Day,
or get one-stop shop to geteverything you need, and so
incentivizing the secondpurchase, again with the data of
knowing, maybe, what they'vepurchased before and making it
different or relevant.
Gary Pageau (32:19):
Or even if they didn't purchase, maybe it's
because at that time they didn'twant anything, but maybe now
they want a Christmas ornamentfor grandma.
Michele Federschneider (32:27):
Yeah, and trying, you know we're
trying multiple tactics to seelike what resonates with these
different audiences anddifferent segments, you know.
So the people that don'tparticipate initially, you know,
will they 60 days later withcertain types of promotions or
with different products featuredor with just a different
message, as you mentioned.
(32:48):
So there's a lot of opportunityto kind of play with products
featured or with just adifferent message, as you
mentioned.
So there's a lot of opportunityto kind of play with all three
of those to increase both who'sparticipating but also the value
that we're getting from each ofthe participants.
Gary Pageau (32:59):
And how are you guys talking to your customers,
the studios, about thisopportunity?
Because I think that's theother piece of it.
Right, you got to have to havethem buy in.
Tim McCain (33:10):
Yeah, we have Gary.
We have a wonderful marketingteam here.
Besides the B2C marketing teamand the commerce, which Michele
does, we also have guys likeJames and Emily and Ann and
Leighton that work here, thatpush out at events right we have
our MVP event.
We're at SPAC, we're at SPOA.
We do a lot of stuff there, butwe also do webinars.
(33:31):
We did one today on yearbooks.
One went out today withChristian and Brendan Colopy
from Strawbridge talking aboutthe importance of yearbooks and
taking your photos and makingmoney off them, right.
So we try to do a lot ofeducation around it.
Again, this is for one.
You know me, this is I've beendoing this 25 years.
I love this.
This is my legacy.
(33:52):
I want to see this all the waythrough and and all the way
through means it's stillthriving when I'm gone, right,
when I'm not here, when I'm notaround.
So we love this.
We believe in the tradition ofit.
We want our customers to makemore money off of the photos
that they take.
What Michele was talking aboutthe stuff about the holidays
really blows me away, becauseyou think about it and we've
(34:12):
never really some people havedone it, not at scale.
We're talking.
We're all P&G dropped outbackgrounds now, right.
So we can take and we can do ourfall photo.
But then we can turn around andput snow behind that at
Christmas and put it on a mugand say happy holidays for
grandma.
Right, put snow behind that at.
Christmas and put it on a mugand say happy holidays for
grandma.
Right, People have done thatonesie, twosie, but we're doing
(34:35):
it in mass and I think thatthat's the neat thing that we
can do now.
Gary Pageau (34:37):
Yeah, so where can people go for more information
to learn about all the wonderfulthings in the world of Captura?
Tim McCain (34:42):
Yeah, so they can go to capturaio, right, and we've
got all kinds of stuff in there.
They can sign up for ournewsletter, they can sign up for
we have classes that they cansign up for.
There's a bunch of videos thereand if you go to capturaio
forward slash products, forwardslash yearbooks, then you can
learn all about the yearbookstuff that we're doing right now
(35:04):
awesome well.
Gary Pageau (35:05):
Thanks, tim.
Great to see you again.
Great to meet you, Michele.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou at an upcoming event,
probably SPAC.
Yes, sir, thank you.
Gary, talk to you soon.
Erin Manning (35:17):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing, andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:18):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we've got a twofer.
We've got two guests.
We've got Tim McCain, the chiefevangelist of Captura, and
Michele Fenderschneider, who isthe VP of Commerce, and she
comes from outside the industryinto school photography.
So we're going to be talkingabout yearbooks, we're going to
(00:40):
be talking about AI, we'll betalking about technology, and
it's going to be a greatconversation.
Hi Tim, Hi Michele, how are youtoday?
How are you, gary?
We're going to be talking aboutAI, we'll be talking about
technology, and it's going to bea great conversation.
Hi Tim, how are you Michele?
How are you?
Michele Federschneider (00:48):
today.
How are you, gary?
We're doing good.
Hi, good to be here.
Gary Pageau (00:50):
Captura has been around in another form for a lot
of years and you announcedearlier this year the name
change and the introduction tothe market of the Captura name
and also kind of combining allthe platforms into one singular
platform, if you will, thedisparate parts from the various
acquisitions.
How's that been going, Tim?
It's been going great.
Tim McCain (01:10):
We took ImageQuix, PhotoLynx, Foto Merchant, and
simple Photo, all thosebusinesses over the last two,
three years and combined andtook the best things out of all
of them and put them into onecomplete platform.
When we did that, we wanted torebrand on the new identity
(01:31):
which is Captura One new nameand one new platform and one new
experience for our customers.
Like customer-centric .
Now, with all those and thefeatures that we have in the
system, we've again, again,taken all the best features out
and building and we'recontinuing to build and we're
all about making our customersmore money or more, anything,
(01:51):
more time well, that's sort ofthe slogan there right make,
more is sort of absolutely withthat yeah, so I'm sure it's been
completely seamless and there'sbeen no hiccups through this
whole.
Yeah, you know it was easy, noproblems, like it was just yeah
all the customers love it.
It's been sure, sure yeah, no,it's, it's been.
Um, it's been an uphill battle.
It's been, it's been a road.
(02:12):
I mean we had, I had, uh, photolinks for 20 some years and
then just getting that and andtaking that experience into
image quicks and then meldingthose cultures right, and then
we took photo merchant anotherculture that had SimpleP hoto
with them and melding that andthen, along with sky lab, which
is now enhanced right, right,all those people like that, so
(02:34):
it's like a big marriage right,of a bunch of different families
that come from different waysof thinking and I think we've
done good at we have a thingcalled the capture away playbook
, a Bible that we live by, right, and the way we treat people
and I think everybody's comingaround, it's starting to get.
It was rough, there's no line,and there were some casualties
in the war.
Gary Pageau (02:57):
Was there anything that, when you were looking at
putting this wholeconglomeration together, where
your perception changed, whereit's like you thought it was
going to go one way and it wenta different way, based on either
technology or customer input?
Can you think of like one thingthat kind of went in a
(03:17):
different direction?
Tim McCain (03:19):
Yeah, one of the things I could say is the way
that we approach the yearbookindustry.
That was different.
We had PlicBooks and we'verevamped that and it's Captura
Yearbooks now.
It's not just a name change;there's a bunch of stuff.
But I thought the new PhotoLynxproducts but were considered
legacy because they were on theold platform would continue on
(03:40):
In the PlicGo the PlicBooksworld.
That changed on in the click gothe click books world.
That changed and we went intothis yearbook model.
That is quite different than wehad thought originally as well
as the way that we go after thecustomer experience and customer
marketing.
Quite frankly, like withMichele, the customer marketing
way we used to do things, andthat was a total shock to me,
(04:02):
like again, I don't want tospeak for Michele, but she we
jumped in and we're like she waslooking at it and going why are
you guys doing stuff like this?
You know an outside perspectivebecause we have these 25 year
blinders of school pictures inthe industry.
Michele came in with fresh eyesand was you know it's been.
It's that changed the way welook at a lot of stuff.
Like Gary, we didn't even knowbefore Michele got here.
(04:22):
To be quite honest, what anemail yielded.
Right, send out an email andMichele's like we got all those
numbers.
Now we got all that data.
She knows exactly what peopleare doing in the shop.
She, she does ab testing here.
I'm still on all your stuff.
Michele Federschneider (04:37):
That's okay, I was gonna say I mean, I
think it's it's.
It's been a and I've only beenhere since january, but I think
it's been a continuation of whathas worked well in the past.
But we've gotten smarter, sowe're investing in our data
infrastructure and reallyunderstanding what's working
well, building and refining ourbest practices from that in
(04:59):
addition to just automating.
So, like we've been doingthings you know that work really
well.
But how do we, you know,automate things like cart
abandonment emails or some ofthe things that can be really
dynamic based on the parentshopping behavior?
And so it's good for the studiobecause some of those work
(05:19):
really well and it's also goodbecause, you know, it gives us a
little time back to focus onsome other more critical, like
high value work operationally.
So yeah there's been a lot ofgood progress and I think, more
than you know, just building onthe foundation that was already
there and getting a little,maybe, smarter with the ways
that we're working.
Gary Pageau (05:40):
So talk a little bit about where you came from,
your background and what you'rekind of bringing to the volume
photography space.
Michele Federschneider (05:48):
Sure.
So I spent almost 17 years atVistaprint, working across
mainly marketing, merchandisingand product management.
So Vistaprint is a solutionthat focuses on design and
printing for small businesses,but we also have consumer lines
or stationary photo gifts.
(06:09):
So there are a lot ofinteresting parallels from how I
worked on the e-commerce andthe shopping experience at
Vistaprin and how thattranslates to just how parents
come and buy photos online.
There's been a lot ofinteresting parallels to bring
for this world to optimize.
And at the end of the day, Ithink one of the nice things in
(06:30):
the last six months or so iswe've really tried to champion
the parents' feedback and reallybring that to life within our
organization.
So where are they getting stuckin the shopping experience?
What are the things thatthey're looking for?
What are their key?
What are the things thatthey're looking for?
What are?
their key points, the feedbackthat they're sharing with us,
for us to both understand that,to then cater our shopping
(06:53):
experience or make tweaks tomake that easier.
Gary Pageau (06:57):
Sure.
Michele Federschneider (06:58):
Parents are shopping online all the time
, and so the solution that webring has to be really emotional
, because it's usually theirchild's image or a family
member's image, but also reallyfamiliar and easy, and so it's
really finding the balancebetween there, and a lot of that
is what I did at Vistaprint, soit's been kind of a nice
transition and a new industrywhere there's a ton of
(07:21):
opportunity.
Tim McCain (07:22):
And Gary, she's not just guessing at stuff.
So this is what I love aboutnot just the data and the
analysis that she brought withher, but she hired a firm that
went out and did, you know,shopping on our website and gave
us feedback about what theyreal moms going in, real moms
and dads ordering pictures andthen giving us video feedback.
(07:42):
Yeah, that they said this wastoo hard to do.
This was not.
This was easy.
This, you know, looking atwhere the rage clicks are, like
I think you had Pindoimplemented with a lot of this
stuff and right and some of thetesting.
Michele Federschneider (07:54):
Yeah.
Tim McCain (07:55):
So this is real time data with real parents and
we're not just having a panel orwe're not just guessing at what
, like we've done in this foryears.
We've like we think mom wantsto do this.
Right, we know now.
We've been interviewing her forseveral weeks now.
Gary Pageau (08:11):
So one of the things I think that's different,
that's changed over the lastfive years, is there's been more
direct access to mom mom, ifyou want to call that the
customer than there has been inthe past.
Because you know, in the badold days of volume photography,
the school controlled thecontact with the parent and that
kind of goes by the wayside,because this is all.
(08:32):
This is kind of like a newapplication of a modern approach
, if you will Right.
Can you give an example of whenyou're like doing A testing
with uh, with an email, the kindof things that are resonating
with with mom that may, in theold way, they might have thought
it was the other way yeah, so Imean things like subject line
(08:56):
testing, so like what's going toget them to open the email and
look at um the email like justengage?
Michele Federschneider (09:03):
and then what are the types of tactics
that will get them to click tosee their image, to see the
images online?
It may sound overly simplified,but the more simple and direct
our messaging is typically thebetter response rate that we get
from mom.
80% of our traffic is coming toour site on mobile, so it needs
to be punchy and to the point.
(09:26):
Coming to our site on mobile, soit needs to be punchy and to
the point.
And so you know, sometimes inthe past we had had these really
big images that were verybranded to the studios and,
while beautiful, the really coremessage would be pushed down
pretty far on the page.
And so having, like the buttonsand the calls to action above
the fold, having any discountmessaging higher up on the page,
(09:47):
really reducing image size,both for, you know, ease of
scannability but also loadingwithin different devices, has
been really helpful, and sowe've been able to fine tune a
lot of those through reallyiterative rounds of A-B testing
to get to what we deem likehere's a best practice for each
(10:07):
of our email templates, based ontesting, and so we can feel
really confident as we implementthose with all the studios,
existing or new, that they'regetting the best experience and
we continue to refine that Evenin the fall.
We're continuing to test justwith this volume and to
continuously learn, so thatthat's been really insightful.
Gary Pageau (10:28):
That's kind of counterintuitive, though, right,
because, at least for ourindustry, because they always
want the image to be the hero.
Right, because that's theproduct.
Is you know that great pictureof your preschool or the great
picture of a middle school, orwhatever?
Michele Federschneider (10:43):
Yeah.
Gary Pageau (10:43):
And but that doesn't necessarily have the
call to action very clear.
Michele Federschneider (10:49):
Yeah, and it's.
You know, we've found it'sdifferent, spinning the message
differently based on where youare in the life cycle.
So like your photos online is agreat example of that.
Like you want to see the image,it's this big reveal moment.
That's when maybe the picturecan really be the hero, versus
as you get into some of theseasonal campaigns through the
(11:11):
holidays.
Maybe it's highlighting certaintypes of products that might
incentivize to you know peopleto come back and purchase again.
Right, and being able to targetthose audiences in different
ways with different messaging,can be really impactful.
Gary Pageau (11:26):
So, tim, One of the things you mentioned earlier
was yearbooks, and that's beenan area of the marketplace that
has really been through a lot inthe last year or so A lot of
changes with some of thesoftware platforms, a lot of
changes with some of the vendorsand, you know, kind of the
emphasis.
It seems almost to be likethere's a bigger emphasis now on
it because it's another printopportunity for the volume
(11:50):
studios, especially those whoare doing, you know, preschool
or elementary school, they'rekind of the younger grades.
I think there's an opportunitythere for like a soft cover kind
of thing.
What are you seeing?
Because that's kind of whereyou came from right.
The yearbook is sort of yourgenesis into this business.
Tim McCain (12:08):
Yeah, we were with PhotoLynx, we were with Workflow
and then we entered into theyearbook software market,
probably about 10 years ago, andthe biggest change, gary, is
people are realizing that thoseare your photos that you took.
Why aren't you making money offthem?
Right?
So the big yearbook companiesof the past, they used to just
hand over your PSPA CD and theywould make a yearbook and that
(12:30):
was that.
And there's no way for thephotographer to make any money
off of their you know, creativeimages, right?
So now people are like gettinghip to that and they're, they're
creating their own books andthere's easy ways to do it.
There's companies out there thatare that are publishers or
aggregators of that and thesoftware just makes it that much
easier.
You know, we have our, ourCaptbook software.
(12:51):
That's just so simple and easyto use, especially for what
you're talking about, those 44page saddle stitch.
You know, easy books for theelementary school.
We crush it and you can send itoff to any number of places to
get it handled.
One like a studio source, or,you know, district Photo does
some, and there's, you know,Strawbridge Studios and
Interstate, and all those guysdo a lot of you know printing of
(13:15):
those type of books.
And if you're going to, ifyou're going to take the image,
why not capture the most amountthat you can?
Because you're doing a lot forfree.
You're going to those freeshoots and taking yearbook
photos, right?
They're going to the footballgame and capturing candidates
that go into the yearbook, andthat's somebody's time, that's
(13:35):
somebody's time, that'ssomebody's money, that's
somebody's effort and weshouldn't just only get a part
of the picture package.
They should get a part of theyearbook.
Gary Pageau (13:39):
So, like you said, there's been a lot of changes in
the marketplace with some ofyour competitors.
Tim McCain (14:02):
They all got good software.
We feel we have the bestsoftware.
We also are a software company.
We're not a photography companythat is putting out software.
You know that tends to eithercater to the company that
created its needs, right, andnot everyone else.
We're taking everybody'sfeedback, also when they're busy
(14:22):
printing their yearbooks andany other competitor.
I'm speaking in general terms.
Right, we're not.
We're a software company, right.
We're busy with our customers'needs, not our own.
Gary Pageau (14:35):
Okay, so what are some of the things when you talk
about the value of a yearbook,right, that will help grow the
market.
How can we, as an industry,convey some of the value of a
yearbook in a printed product?
Because I think that'ssomething that, as an industry,
we're not doing.
Tim McCain (14:55):
Yeah, look, I'm a member of SPOA, a board member
of SPOA.
I believe in the tradition ofschool photography and yearbooks
, right, a hundred percent.
And I think that you knowseveral companies have tried
digital books, putting them onyour phone, all that type of
stuff.
You're not going to have thisphone, you're not going to have
that media, but you can havethat print.
(15:17):
Everybody's running to theunderneath their bed and pulling
out the shoe box and they'regrabbing photos.
They're grabbing their yearbookfrom 30 years ago.
They're bringing that to thereunion.
They're not popping out thephone and saying, look at Jimmy,
when he, you know it's so, it'sthe traditional print.
That is that is so important.
(15:37):
And I personally feel thatyearbooks are the way that we're
going to tie Look mom, mom ordad right, I keep saying mom,
because 85% of the purchasersare are the mothers.
But mom or dad can take aphotograph of their kid
themselves.
They can get a damn goodaccidental headshot if they want
it to right.
(15:57):
Sure, they can't create ayearbook.
They don't have the permissionto put everybody else's photos
in there for that child'smemories later on in life.
And I believe through yearbookswe're tying the tradition of
school photography back to thatright.
So I believe yearbooks issomething that they can't do on
their own, and since they can'tdo it, they're on their own.
We piggyback on that withschool photography.
(16:19):
Does that make sense?
Yeah, yeah, and I firmlybelieve that we're having.
We're seeing a resurgence rightnow where people are going away
from.
I mean, I just talked to a kidthat's taking film in college.
Right, we're going back to thistraditional stuff and people
have a longing for stuff thatisn't made up, it's not
generative AI, it's not fake,it's not phony, there's no
(16:42):
filters, right.
I want to see my child in theyearbook with the braces and the
pimples, and this is mepersonally.
I'm not knocking anybody thatwants to have, you know, but I
want to see how goofy they werewhen they were goofy.
You know, that's part of the.
That's part of the experience.
Gary Pageau (16:59):
Right, I mean you are offering the enhancement, we
are, we have that.
We have that because somepeople want that.
Tim McCain (17:04):
Some people, and I get it.
Me personally, though, I air onthe traditional side of stuff.
Maybe that's because I'm 52years old, right, but I also I
truly believe that we're gettingmore and more in that realm and
people are going back to that.
There's a resurgence of peoplewanting, longing for the
traditional, as we have thismade, especially with the
generative ai, and you can fakeanything and deep fakes and all
(17:27):
these videos where you don'tknow what's true, and all this
other stuff we can have thereality of a print on a yearbook
, and it's a beautiful thing.
Gary Pageau (17:36):
You know, one of the things I think you're
touching on is sort of a thingthat touches on various segments
of the industry.
Right, like you said earlier,people are shooting film.
Right, kodak's back to makingfilm seven days a week, you know
, yeah, which is crazy when youthink about it.
But that gets back to, I think,where the value of school
photography or even vacationphotos and all this is.
(17:59):
You know the authenticity of it.
Right, you can have AI generate, you know, pictures of your
trip to Paris, but what mattershere are the pictures you took,
right.
Right, and I think thatauthentic piece is sort of
something you know.
Technology is great.
We all love technology, right,there's nothing wrong with it,
but it's just a tool to get youto whatever that memory is.
Tim McCain (18:25):
So look, gary, there's guys like Ed Monahan
that 15 years ago told us youknow prints packages, and I
can't remember what else he said.
It was print packages andscreens.
Yeah, so Ed used to preach allthat.
I think that Ed was way aheadof his time, smart guy, way
ahead of his time.
Yeah, right, so we're there now.
Right, we can have all thatcontent you're talking about.
(18:47):
We can have the AI generatedcontent.
We can have content from mom.
We can generated content.
We can have content from mom.
We can have professionalcontent.
All exist in the same spot,like how beautiful is that.
We're getting there right now.
Right now, we're messing withstuff that in captura, where you
can upload, you know, theparent stuff into a professional
package, you get theprofessional print right right
and then the photographer getsto participate in creating
(19:10):
something with the parent rightand you.
we do that now with yearbooks,with the Candid Uploader.
Parents can upload, you know,whatever they want into that and
somebody can put that in thebook.
So I think that getting thereand what Ed had foretold so many
years ago is coming to fruitionright now.
Gary Pageau (19:27):
Yeah, I think you're right, Because I think
the ability to customize ayearbook makes it even better,
because I always thought one ofthe knocks on the yearbook was,
you know, especially at the highschool level right, if you had
a big school, you might be in amugshot and you might be in a
teen picture, but you may not beanywhere else in the book
(19:49):
Because either they didn't getyour picture or the photo editor
didn't like you, or the picturewas terrible or whatever.
But the ability to customize itwith either the person's own
photos is, I think, a hugeopportunity that I think needs
to be leveraged.
Tim McCain (20:05):
Yeah, I agree, because otherwise you've got
just pretty popular people likeMichele dominating the book and
us ugly guys.
Don't get in it, gary.
Gary Pageau (20:19):
That's right.
So, Michele, from an e-commercestandpoint, you are charged
with conveying this messageright?
You've got to take this fairlycomplex technology of hey, you
can change the people'scomplexion a little bit, you can
change the backgrounds, you cando some of these things, but
you can be able to convey that.
Do some of these things, butyou can be able to convey that.
What are your thoughts on thechallenge of the industry on
that?
Michele Federschneider (20:38):
Yeah, I think the role that we have to
play as a software company andas a platform is to balance all
of the wonderful aspects ofcustomization, but to do that in
a way that is very simple forthe parent to execute.
And so, you know, on our corewebsite it's the things like
(20:58):
different backgrounds, differentimage editing options, right,
like, how do we do that in a waywhere it's actually fun, right
To like try out these differentthings to see how they're going
to look and to get the photothat you want.
And we're looking at the samething for yearbooks.
So you know, we have a portionof our business that are, that's
(21:20):
, using our yearbook e-commercesolution, so it all has the
ability to purchase books, tohave things like add-ons for
parents to.
You know, you mentioned, ayearbook might only have a
school photo, but parents canput, you know, half page or full
page notes or things like thatfor the students in there, and
so that's a nice option.
(21:42):
And so there's additionalfeatures that kind of make
things feel more personal, has abenefit for the studio, because
, you know, you can personalizeyour cover, you can add the name
and the year.
And so now, personalize yourcover, you can add the name and
the year, and so now thatyearbook feels much more
specific to the student and youknow it kind of incentivizes the
parents to buy because it's notjust the generic thing that
(22:02):
they might pick up in the office, which would also be an option.
But you know we can.
You know the studios can make alittle more money off that.
We give the parent a reallyeasy shopping experience and so
also the ability to market tothem.
That's something that we'rereally leaning into this year is
all of the things I talkedabout that we're doing for our
(22:22):
core business, for marketing.
We can also talk to parentsabout yearbooks and remind them
when it's yearbook season.
You know you don't have toremember the flyer that the
school hung on the door butthing in your inbox that's
really easy to order from, andso we're hoping studios see a
real benefit from that as well.
Gary Pageau (22:41):
Now in the marketing piece, you know.
So you probably have a lot ofcompanies, customers who are you
know, we'll just do it.
We have that relationship, wecan do it, we're smart people.
And then you have another groupof people who surely need all
the help that they can get.
How are you set up to kind ofhandle those two dichotomies?
I imagine you get a lot ofpeople who you know either they
(23:03):
haven't done a lot of yearbooksor they're trying to get into
the, you know, trying to growthat piece of their business.
Other people have said you know, hey, you know, we've got our
own printing plant where we'vebeen set up for this for the
years.
We don't care.
What's your approach there?
How are you communicating withthe customers?
Michele Federschneider (23:17):
Yeah, I mean, I think you know we have a
couple of phases of justthere's some awareness of like,
hey, we're doing yearbooks.
Do you know the value as acustomer that a yearbook could
bring to your business?
And conveying those numbers.
And, to Tim's point, you'realready doing the work and so if
there's an opportunity for youto get in with the school and to
(23:38):
offer this as a, you know, anaddition to your business,
that's a really nice gentlemarket and we're really trying
to aim the customers with.
You know some of that, likewhat are the key messages?
Like how do you go to theschool and make this pitch?
And you know what are thereally compelling aspects of you
as a photographer, but also thesoftware that you can leverage
(23:59):
from us to make that case, andso we have a number of resources
online and then we're reallyworking with our customers
individually to, you know, helpthem get those contracts.
Gary Pageau (24:10):
Now, tim, from a technology standpoint you
mentioned.
You know you've been droppingthe Gen AI buzzwords and all
those fun things, but you've gotto be looking at it from a
standpoint of you know you canput all this stuff in there, but
if it's not used, or if it'sused poorly or terribly, you
know you've got challenges there.
How are you evaluating whattechnology to put in there?
Tim McCain (24:31):
Yeah, so that's a good question.
We have a great team.
We have a great product teamright now and we use a lot of
parental feedback, a lot ofphotographer feedback.
Our product team gets togetherand they do their own testing.
Yeah, there's a lot of new techthat you can put in there.
We have our machine learningteam, like we were talking about
AI.
We have that in-house.
We don't outsource any of thatstuff.
(24:51):
We already got those guys right.
So our product team looks atthat.
They say, hey, what about this?
We have other committees thatlook at stuff and go, yeah, that
would be good for this or thatwouldn't.
And then we also shop it aroundwith some of our bigger clients
that use yearbooks in oursoftware to create them right.
The big thing that, gary, Ithink that we have above
(25:16):
everyone else is we don't create, you know, spoa or PSPA
yearbook disks.
When you put it into ourCaptura system and you use our
Captura yearbooks, it's alreadythere.
So school logs on all the panelpages are built automatically,
because that's one of the bigthings that we have on all the
panel pages are builtautomatically, because that's
one of the big things that wehave Any subject info data that
they need to change around.
Instead of McCain they saidMcCain's with an S right.
(25:36):
They can do it right there andyou don't have to go back to
your photographer to make achange, to get them a new disc.
All that stuff is just rightthere and we're completely
online with all of it.
Gary Pageau (25:44):
Yeah, and that alone is a big thing when, I'm
sure, because you know thingshappen right, like you said an
extra s gets printed, an extrakey gets held down in the input
area and it's you know it's.
It's crazy on picture day,right, trying to capture all
that stuff yeah, any number ofthings.
Tim McCain (26:00):
And when it goes through our system again, we
know from school photography,one of the biggest pain points
for years is creating those.
You know I call them discsbecause I'm 52 years old.
But those uploads, right, thoselinks, right, yeah, you know
Dropbox or however else theywere getting them from the
school to Jostens, herff Jones,taylor, any of those other
publishing companies, right, andthe years are now.
(26:22):
You just open up your Captureyearbooks and it's there.
So the school gets a link withtheir name, you know, and they
go and they create a passwordand their school's already
uploaded into the system.
They can start working on theirbook right away.
There's no waiting.
Gary Pageau (26:34):
Oh yeah, that's really not jimmy, that's james,
and then we can they can changeit right right and which has
never been able to be done soare you focused only on a print
product, or are you going to beoffering some sort of electronic
version, just to even justoffer it?
Or do you think it's just notsomething the market really
(26:55):
wants?
Tim McCain (26:56):
All right.
So you never say never and I'mone voice in a bunch, so we have
.
We have a big team here.
I personally think that it'sbeen done and it's flopped
several times over.
Yeah, it's getting back to myoriginal statement of preserving
school photography andpreserving the tradition of
prints.
Erin Manning (27:16):
Right.
Tim McCain (27:17):
Big thing that we do and we believe in.
I mean, we support the SPO andthat's what SPO is all about.
Right, the School Photographersof America.
So I can't say that like Iwould be jumping up and down and
saying let's do that If theproduct team brought it over and
said this is what we want to do, but again, I'm one vote in
about seven or eight.
Gary Pageau (27:35):
Yeah, I just like I said, I've seen those various
things and I've seen the demosand all and it seems like cool
stuff, but it's almost like it'strying to solve a problem that
doesn't exist.
Tim McCain (27:48):
Exactly, exactly and it's.
It's also when I start thinkingabout this stuff.
I, you know, I think abouteight tracks and VHS and all the
media changes and Prince Vinceis a whole thing.
Right, we've had Prince in the1800s.
So, I don't like it again, LikeI wouldn't be the first person
to do it.
Gary Pageau (28:04):
But again, you never say never If there's a
market demand, and it startedhappening we would participate
in that, and I don't think itwould be a replacement for a
yearbook.
Tim McCain (28:15):
It might be an add-on Additive would be a good
thing.
I mean, we've seen it probablyfive or six times throughout the
last 10 years.
People pop up with stuff andthey pop up with digital ID
cards and then you know, with aswoop of a pen they say you
can't bring your phone to school, right, and then that's that,
right.
So we don't know.
I just the print media isalways going to be around.
Gary Pageau (28:37):
Right.
Yeah, it's interesting youmentioned that about the school
ID thing, because that's exactlywhat's happening, right.
And in Michigan we've gotseveral school districts here
who have said nope, we don'twant the distraction, we're
going to take the kids' phoneswhen they walk in.
Tim McCain (28:50):
Right.
So if we have school IDs on ourphones, digital IDs, what
happens then?
Right.
Gary Pageau (28:55):
Right, exactly.
Tim McCain (28:56):
And the school's not making the laws, the lawmakers.
I mean there's a lot of nuancedstuff, but PVC cards aren't
getting taken away and neitheris the paper print of a yearbook
.
Gary Pageau (29:09):
Yeah, it is.
It is interesting.
I was sort of always.
It's coming back around againnow.
A lot of schools are capturingvideo with their content that
they're doing.
Is there anything you can dowith that in the print format?
I've tried.
I've seen different people.
Tim McCain (29:23):
You know they're doing screen grabs out of video
and they're trying to dodifferent things with qr codes
to launch videos yeah, I don'tknow if you remember this about,
uh, 15 years ago, I had aprogram called jump seat.
Yeah, we put qr codes intoyearbooks, yeah, right, and you
uploaded the video to a websiteand then you would put your
phone over that qr code and thenan ar marker would be there.
(29:46):
I actually ed monahan, was whokicked this off for me when I
went to one of his things at DP2years ago, and so we created
Jumpseat and you could put a ARmarker with a QR tag and it
would pop up with the wrestlingvideo on the wrestling page,
right, I think it was a littlebit again ahead of its time.
I think there's companies likeFlam or RMBR right now.
Gary Pageau (30:07):
Yeah, we're doing that.
Tim McCain (30:08):
Yep, Chris Garcia, they're doing that, and I think
you could actually do ityourself too.
There's a lot of different waysto go about it, but that's cool
stuff too.
But I'm going to go back alittle bit again is what happens
when that website's down?
What happens when the QR code?
It has to be additive, it can'tbe in supplement of right.
Gary Pageau (30:28):
At least you've got that print right To kick off
that video.
Tim McCain (30:32):
Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, I think it's cool, it'sall neat stuff, right?
Gary Pageau (30:36):
So Michele from a marketing standpoint.
You know there's a lot going onin kind of the education world.
That's kind of a challenge,right.
I mean I was talking tosomebody the other day about the
volume photography business.
They said, well, it can't growthat much because they aren't
building any more schools.
So to have healthy growth in anindustry, you know, where are
(31:00):
you seeing opportunities forgrowth?
Michele Federschneider (31:02):
We look at a couple of different factors
.
So one is just like are wegetting people to participate?
So how many, you know, are theybuying?
Gary Pageau (31:10):
Expansion rate, buy rate, yeah, Exactly the classic
yeah.
Michele Federschneider (31:13):
Yeah, and then I think the bigger
opportunities that we're seeingis in how we can increase that
average order value.
So I talked about thesimplicity of the experience.
That's something we're leaninginto, like how do you make it
easier to get the second or thethird product in the single
session without needing torecustomize or go through the
(31:34):
whole process again?
Tim McCain (31:36):
Right.
Michele Federschneider (31:36):
And certainly there are other, you
know, new products.
There are other ways that canbe really impactful for average
order value.
And then the third is justmultiple purchases, and so
that's something again thatwe're really focused on, even
for buyers.
So let's say you've come andyou've bought a print, but over
the holidays, like, can we talkabout the specialty items we
(31:58):
have, or the card?
Gary Pageau (31:59):
Yeah, sort of the remarketing, retargeting kind of
thing, yeah.
Michele Federschneider (32:02):
Exactly like the mugs for Mother's Day,
or get one-stop shop to geteverything you need, and so
incentivizing the secondpurchase, again with the data of
knowing, maybe, what they'vepurchased before and making it
different or relevant.
Gary Pageau (32:19):
Or even if they didn't purchase, maybe it's
because at that time they didn'twant anything, but maybe now
they want a Christmas ornamentfor grandma.
Michele Federschneider (32:27):
Yeah, and trying, you know we're
trying multiple tactics to seelike what resonates with these
different audiences anddifferent segments, you know.
So the people that don'tparticipate initially, you know,
will they 60 days later withcertain types of promotions or
with different products featuredor with just a different
message, as you mentioned.
(32:48):
So there's a lot of opportunityto kind of play with products
featured or with just adifferent message, as you
mentioned.
So there's a lot of opportunityto kind of play with all three
of those to increase both who'sparticipating but also the value
that we're getting from each ofthe participants.
Gary Pageau (32:59):
And how are you guys talking to your customers,
the studios, about thisopportunity?
Because I think that's theother piece of it.
Right, you got to have to havethem buy in.
Tim McCain (33:10):
Yeah, we have Gary.
We have a wonderful marketingteam here.
Besides the B2C marketing teamand the commerce, which Michele
does, we also have guys likeJames and Emily and Ann and
Leighton that work here, thatpush out at events right we have
our MVP event.
We're at SPAC, we're at SPOA.
We do a lot of stuff there, butwe also do webinars.
(33:31):
We did one today on yearbooks.
One went out today withChristian and Brendan Colopy
from Strawbridge talking aboutthe importance of yearbooks and
taking your photos and makingmoney off them, right.
So we try to do a lot ofeducation around it.
Again, this is for one.
You know me, this is I've beendoing this 25 years.
I love this.
This is my legacy.
(33:52):
I want to see this all the waythrough and and all the way
through means it's stillthriving when I'm gone, right,
when I'm not here, when I'm notaround.
So we love this.
We believe in the tradition ofit.
We want our customers to makemore money off of the photos
that they take.
What Michele was talking aboutthe stuff about the holidays
really blows me away, becauseyou think about it and we've
(34:12):
never really some people havedone it, not at scale.
We're talking.
We're all P&G dropped outbackgrounds now, right.
So we can take and we can do ourfall photo.
But then we can turn around andput snow behind that at
Christmas and put it on a mugand say happy holidays for
grandma.
Right, put snow behind that at.
Christmas and put it on a mugand say happy holidays for
grandma.
Right, People have done thatonesie, twosie, but we're doing
(34:35):
it in mass and I think thatthat's the neat thing that we
can do now.
Gary Pageau (34:37):
Yeah, so where can people go for more information
to learn about all the wonderfulthings in the world of Captura?
Tim McCain (34:42):
Yeah, so they can go to capturaio, right, and we've
got all kinds of stuff in there.
They can sign up for ournewsletter, they can sign up for
we have classes that they cansign up for.
There's a bunch of videos thereand if you go to capturaio
forward slash products, forwardslash yearbooks, then you can
learn all about the yearbookstuff that we're doing right now
(35:04):
awesome well.
Gary Pageau (35:05):
Thanks, tim.
Great to see you again.
Great to meet you, Michele.
I'm looking forward to seeingyou at an upcoming event,
probably SPAC.
Yes, sir, thank you.
Gary, talk to you soon.
Erin Manning (35:17):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
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