Okay, millennial readers, I’m about to make an argument on behalf of printers everywhere. I know that’s not your thing but just bear with me and try to keep an open mind.
Do we have a deal?
I love my smart phone. I love my tablet. I love the capacity of my storage files, believe me. I’m the first person to look up to the heavens and thank Steve Jobs for his hand in making modern day humans part robot, and I promise I don’t mean that felicitously.
I see the value in convenience and efficiency, so I totally understand the appeal of the digital age. I also see the value in photo sharing, don’t get me wrong. I try to accommodate the demands of social media by offering many different kinds of digitalized packages.
However, there is just simply something special about handing my brides their physical wedding album for the first time .
I’ve tried to pinpoint this feeling. I think it might be knowing I’m handing someone their newest most valuable possession.
Here’s my emotional plea: it’s so easy to get caught up in the heat of life. When we look back, memories become muddled and we inevitably lose the small details of even the most notable moments. Sure, it’s great to have a digital database of every single photo you’ve ever made an appearance in, but how often will you remember to look at those photos? Printing our photos forces us to prioritize. We choose the photos that best capture the precious moments, and we physically have them to look back on no matter where we go in life.
Okay, so that’s my cornball argument. But! I have some straight facts too if you aren’t convinced yet.
Temple University conducted a research study on how the brain processes digital ads vs. print ads. Here’s a table that shows what they found:
Now! This is an article about marketing and advertising, so I want you to look at stimulation and valuation in particular. According to this chart, not only do consumers more easily recall an emotional response to a printed ad, but they also subconsciously place more value on that ad.
The study also found that while consumers absorbed about the same amount of information from both digital and physical media ads, a week later consumers showed a greater emotional response and memory for the physical media ads. You can check it out here.
I believe the findings in this study can also apply to memories. When you look at your photos you should be transported back to that moment they were snapped. We are in the business of preserving life’s most precious moments here! Whether that be your newborn portraits, your senior photos, or wedding pictures. We want to do everything we can to evoke every scent, sound and feeling from those days we wish never had to end.
So yes, let’s definitely get you a new profile picture, but let’s also print it out. I promise you won’t know how much that hard copy means to you until you do.
Always Make Healthy Choices...Vivian