Local startup Onomonomedia is out to prove that, even in the era of the smartphone selfie, photo booths can be a popular and fun addition to parties and a creative way to market a brand. The four-year-old startup provides specially designed booths for events that combine the classic aspects of a photo booth with high-tech options like videos, gifs, filters and green screen backgrounds. They're also hooked up to social media, with hashtags, location-tagging and special branding among the possible options to request.
"We're a digital media boutique," said Onomonomedia CEO and co-founder Dave Clark. "We design and build digital media stations for events and brands in whatever way they need."
The booths are rented out for about $1,500 for a four hour event, costing more depending on time or extra features like the gif-making. Along with the photo booths, Onomonomedia has started working with hotels to provide specially installed Instagram booths to help the hotel brand.
"They're really great tools for brands," Clark said. "The kiosks can be activated by hashtags and print out branded postcards."
Basically, visitors to the hotel can get printed out pictures from their trip, but only if they promote the hotel with the right hashtag and share it out on social media. It's a pretty clever way of turning the increasingly common checking-in and taking a picture on social media into a way to for a hotel to get some publicity.
"It's a very relatable setup," Clark said. "People like having a physical souvenir even though everything is digital now, and the gifs and other uploads are all part of the experience."
All of the booths are built by The Proper Carpenter, Richard Sewell in Fairfax who takes the hardware provided by Clark and makes the booths to house them. The company has plenty of business for him, with 15 photo booths and another five Instagram booths for the hotel project.
Clark and his local team just moved to Paul Singh's Disruption Corporation offices in Crystal City a few weeks ago, although the company has satellite offices in other cities around the country like New York, LA and Miami, with booths ready to go at need. Clark said it's been a really good match with Disruption as they appreciate the physical aspects of his company.
"It seems like a great fit," he said. "Hopefully we'll be here for a long time."
Financially, the company seems to have a pretty good situation, having grown organically from a $10,000 loan into a company on track to bring in $1 million in revenue this year according to Clark. There are a few big companies out there competing in a similar space, but that tends to lead to all of them feeding off each other's ideas. As Onomonomedia grows, Clark said he hopes to expand the company into more of an overall branding firm. The booths will still be used of course, as they are an essential part of what makes Onomonomedia stand out, even in a time when everyone has their own photo booth in their hand theoretically.
"We strive to create unique experiences," Clark said. "We take it beyond what anyone can do on their own for a selfie."
