Keep the Best Memories at Your Fingertips with Capturelife

Our increasingly digital world is changing the way we live in almost every facet. One of the most obvious changes is how we share and engage with one another across the many social platforms available. When we share memories on vacation, for example, that media is now accessible to both consumers and brands and can be used as a powerful marketing tool. 

Capturelife is a digital photography and engagement platform harnessing the power of memories to boost revenue and foster brand loyalty among consumers. Founded in 2015, Capturelife saw a deficiency in the process of creating memories that last because of dead-end marketing strategies employed by popular attractions, resorts, theme parks, sporting events and more. They’re now changing the way consumers relive their experiences and how brands use those memories to foster connections with their patrons. 

What is Capturelife? 

Capturelife is an innovative new digital photography and engagement platform designed to make life’s special moments more shareable for both consumers and brands. Capturelife blends user-generated and professional content on the devices we all have in our pockets right now to help people better connect with their experiences and help brands capitalize on sharing those experiences with new potential customers. The goal is to make life’s most important moments easier and more rewarding through their innovative platform. 

New Media Drives Cruise Innovation 

When it comes to capturing memories on a cruise vacation, cruise lines went digital long ago. Most ships have a photo gallery onboard where guests can sift through images taken on board by the cruise line’s professional photographer and if they find themselves, are able to print out or obtain a digital copy of the media so they can share with friends and family. 

Since that monumental shift to digital, however, there hasn’t been much of a change. Capturelife is looking to continue that innovation by allowing guests to access the same library of content without having to visit the physical gallery on board. The innovation doesn’t stop there. As the world looks beyond photos to embrace other advanced digital media, like gifs and video, Capturelife is on the cutting edge of that innovation.  Features like branded overlays, dynamic backgrounds, animated gifs, and video stories take media to a whole new level of engagement and shareability.

Capturelife also tracks the guest’s interactions with their content and can automatically trigger contextual, targeted promotions to drive purchasing before, during, and after the cruise.  Capturelife also offers guests the ability to purchase a wide variety of print products post cruise that can be delivered to their home virtually anywhere in the world.

Capturelife for a Cruise Vacation 

When cruisers step on board a cruise ship, there’s almost unlimited potential for capturing memories, and gone are the days that all photos will be printed and hung in a gallery or put into folders for cruisers to purchases. Traditional cruise photos start on the gangway as cruisers embark, but today’s cruise experience begins when the booking is made and extends well past when they walk off the gangway and cruise companies are keen to enhance that driveway to driveway experience. From boarding the plane to the first steps up the gangway to the very last sunset cruisers are snapping pictures and taking videos of their vacation to share with friends, family, and their social followings.  For cruise lines, these memories are powerful marketing tools and can be sold prior to and after the cruise putting more dollars into the passenger’s shipboard spending wallet.

Rob Mauldin is an advisor to Capturelife’s Board of Directors and spent 20 years at Disney in roles at Disney Cruise Line and Disney Photo Imaging (the theme park’s PhotoPass Service). Mauldin joined Capturelife as an advisor when he saw the platform’s potential to accelerate the integration of a souvenir photo business into an experience’s digital platform.

“I’ve led teams that spent tens of millions of dollars in technical spending to build, and rebuild, digital platforms to support large-scale souvenir photo operations,” he said. “I realized that Capturelife can be the platform for everybody else to accelerate improvements to the passenger photo experience and integrate with the rapidly evolving technical platforms that are powering the cruise experience of tomorrow.”

As Mauldin explains, there are two ways to gain value from photo and video media.

“The first is from souvenir revenue.  Cruise lines have sold photos on board for decades.  Shifting sales pre and post-cruise put discretionary shipboard revenue dollars back in the passenger’s wallet and enables photo departments on board to focus on capturing memories vs. selling.  More capture = more value.  The second value is brand extension – the ability for a brand to interact with cruisers pre, during, and post and extend the experience in a mass personalized way.”

Capturelife makes it easy to seamlessly integrate their platform into existing cruise line apps to engage with guests in a way that allows for delivery, engagement, and monetization of digital assets created by both passengers and professional photographers.  Capturelife starts engaging with cruisers during the pre-cruise process and essentially never stops as cruisers are able to access the best parts of their trip well past its conclusion.

The Value of Professional Photography

We all have high-definition cameras in our pockets, but not everyone has the creative eye to capture moments like a professional photographer can. Rich Scanlon, CEO of ImageQuix, the parent company of Capturelife, saw firsthand how Disney’s PhotoPass worked and believed it was the perfect tool for any experience-based brand. He saw that there was a more personal connection to the brand when a specialist behind the camera was capturing the moments. 

“Parents can take as many candids as they like. But we’re finding that the lure of the professional photograph that makes you look good, that captures moments when you can’t take your phone out, on a coaster or when you’re with a character, is irresistible,” Scanlon said. “There’s no replacement for that memory capture of a professionally taken photograph. We’ve seen that both in the high-volume space and the theme park space at Disney.” 

Cruise ship operators often have professional photographers on board capturing moments with high-end equipment. Whether you’re enjoying the lido deck or exploring on a shore excursion, Capturelife allows cruise lines to display their professionally-produced media for guests who then have the option to purchase, share and engage with the content in a new and different way through the app. 

Weeks, months or even years later, guests can return to the library of photo and video content and create custom souvenirs based on their personal experiences. Brands who build relationships with guests only to have those relationships erode following the experience are missing out on the potential for repeat business. Capturelife keeps engagement high through their easy-to-use platform and their ability to get the most out of the new experience economy.

“Capturelife creates this interesting little cul de sac where all this media can live,” says Mauldin. “It gets stored and is an interesting way to then feed into Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter.”

As the world travel industry gets back on its feet following the pandemic, the desire to capture moments will be at an all time high. Capturelife is the perfect platform to leverage this demand and help both consumers and brands get the most out of the guest experience. It makes it easy for guests to relive their experiences and for brands to use their expertise to show guests a side of the experience they aren’t able to capture on their own. 

 

 

 

 

This post was sponsored by Capturelife.