Guest Author: Richard Askam, Founder of Print Island

Every industry needs storytellers, and few tell the story of personalization better than Richard Askam. The visionary behind Print Island and a driving force behind campaigns like “Share a Coke,” Richard has helped shape how brands connect with people in more personal, meaningful ways.

As one of Mediaclip’s personalization ambassador, follow Richard on our blog as he will share his insights, ideas, and inspiration to help bridge creativity, technology, and personalization.

Last month, I had the pleasure of welcoming the founder of Mediaclip onto our brand-new podcast, The Media Clip (see what we did there), to reflect on the 20 years since she founded the business, and the remarkable changes we’ve all experienced in that time.

Marion Duchesne took us back to 2006, a time before the smartphone era truly began, and shared how the company started life as a DVD-based service. Yes, DVDs: physical discs you had to hold, store, and occasionally hunt down when they disappeared behind the sofa.

But Mediaclip’s service was different. In hindsight, it offered a clear clue to the development curve that lay ahead. Alongside fellow guest and Chief of Growth Marie-Eve Lemieux, we found ourselves feeling surprisingly nostalgic for those days when people actually waited days or sometimes weeks for physical photos to be developed.

When digital cameras arrived, the shift felt revolutionary. Suddenly, you could upload your images onto a DVD and watch a slideshow on your television, turning your living room into a private cinema of memories. It sounds quaint now, almost charmingly slow, but at the time it was cutting-edge. Early adopters embraced it enthusiastically, sensing that something important was changing in how we captured and shared moments.

Marion recognised something deeper in this behaviour. Photo products weren’t just a novelty; they were the beginning of a movement. People didn’t simply want to store memories, they wanted to live with them.

What started with DVD slideshows soon evolved into calendars, photobooks, greeting cards and, eventually, smartphone cases. There’s something beautifully ironic about using old memories to personalise new technology, a reminder that while our tools evolve rapidly, human nature moves at its own pace.

I often reference an image in my talks from 1906: a man proudly showing off his new motor car… while still using his horse to tow it. It perfectly captures that transitional mindset, the desire to embrace progress while holding tightly to what feels familiar.

And there we were, a century later in 2006, still displaying that same cautious curiosity:

“Well, I’ll wait and see if this new technology really catches on.”

It’s comforting, in a way. Progress may accelerate, but human adoption always carries a touch of hesitation.

Fast forward 20 years, and the pace of change is staggering. What once took decades now takes years. What took years now takes weeks. Increasingly, what took weeks can now happen in minutes, or even seconds, with the help of AI.

What impressed me most during our conversation was not just how far Mediaclip has come, but how firmly Marion, Marie-Eve, and the entire team are leaning into what comes next. They aren’t simply reacting to change, hey’re helping shape it.

If you’d like to hear the full conversation, Episode 1 of The Media Clip podcast is now live.

And coming soon in Episode 2, I’ll be chatting with the CTO, who will no doubt be using all sorts of technical language I don’t understand…

Now, where did I leave my horse?

Note: Mediaclip will be celebrating officially its 20 year anniversary since its inception in 2027.