The Jeego Blog - Progressive Greetings

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Mobile Greetings
“We also fare well when someone wants
to say sorry or pick up on something that has
just happened,” says Sarah.
The Jeego team have nothing but
praise for the creativity within the
‘traditional greeting card industry’, hence its
decision to sign licensing agreements with
several leading brands who, not only receive
a royalty payment every time one of their
designs is selected, but also the publisher in
question has the added benefit of being
able to use the animated version of their
card design(s) for their own use (see Ged
Mace, md of The Art File’s comment below).
In addition to existing card designs, the
Jeego team has forged links with other
artists and illustrators to create what is an
evolving portfolio of designs.
Above: One of the spontaneous sending situations covered by Jeego.
Right: Jeego loads up the different messages you can send.
Below right: One of the ‘cards’ you can send via your mobile.
“We are are hugely respectful of so
many of the talented artists,
illustrators and designers that have
helped make the UK greeting card
industry the world leader that it is
today,” says Sarah.
She draws a parallel with books
and ebooks. “People are still reading
real books in their drives with ebooks
co-existing. The important thing is that
people are still reading books.
Likewise, it is important thing is
that people still send cards in all
their forms.”
Sarah really believes that
Jeego can help to form a valuable
The Jeego Blog
When Jeego’s former
incarnation of Sharpcards
started (over 10 years ago)
it worked with the mobile
phone operators and
provided them with ecards
to distribute to their
customers. A number of the
operators, in particular
Orange, were keen to get
the ecards embedded in
the handsets and Jeego
raised a significant amount
of cash on the back of this.
Ultimately it didn’t work, the technical Above: Jeego’s Vanessa Pawsley and Sarah Addezio – friends since university
issues were seen as too great and the rise of they are now both using their skills to build the ‘mobile moments’ business.
the iphone and apps were changing the mobile landscape dramatically.
In 2011 it became clear that Jeego would have to downsize and cost cuts significantly.
And there was a big question mark over whether it could survive.
Although she wasn’t involved at the time, Vanessa Pawsley, wife of Jeego’s founder Will
Walsh, knew a lot about the business from her husband and had always believed in the
concept. Recognising that she would need some help to revamp the idea, she approached
Sarah Addezio, a friend from their university days, to see if she was interested in getting
involved. As someone who, pre-kids been a radio producer across various BBC Radio stations,
Sarah knew about all the importance of providing engaging content.
“We thought that if we focused on making the cards beautiful and high quality then
there was a lot of potential,” said Vanessa.
Having just completed a post grad certificate in psychology Sarah was on the verge of
embarking on conversion course to make use of this.
But instead, “I put it all on hold and said yes!” revealed Sarah.
bridge to ensure that consumers
continue to send ‘cards’ throughout
the period when traditional card
sending potentially drops off.
“Those in their early to mid 20s
are now used to doing everything on
their mobile phone - if they send
mobile greetings from their phone
then at least they are
maintaining that habit. It
doesn’t mean they will give
up sending real cards, what
we are hoping to do is
reinforce the value of social
communication, which has
to be good news for all
concerned,” says Sarah.
Filing An Animated Report
Ged Mace, managing director of The Art File explains the rationale behind the
company’s decision to licence some of its designs to Jeego: “I’ve always been
interested in animation and so was delighted when Jeego contacted us
about working together. Bringing our designs to life adds a completely new
dimension and opens up a whole new market opportunity for us. It’s an ideal
vehicle to reach out to the younger male market especially (16 – 25 years)
which has been difficult to target with traditional greeting cards.”
Left: The first Art File design that was been animated by Jeego.
Facing The Facts
Sarah Addezio has plenty of stats at her
fingertips (including from its own
research commissioned in 2011), which
give some shape to the digital greeting
card world:
l AG made $78 million from its ecard
activity in 2011, which is 3 - 5% of it’s
annual turnover.
l Jacqui Lawson, the British ecard site,
ranks in the top 6,000 global websites.
l 123 Greetings’ revenue “shot up 58%
year-on-year”, it reported last spring.
l Hallmark launched ecards on mobile in
April 2012.
l The Birthday Cards App on Facebook is
ranked number 146 with over 2.5
monthly users.
l Around a third of Brits are now
sending texts rather than greeting
cards for birthdays.
l Some 54% of under 40 year-olds said
they would be ‘fairly likely’ or ‘very
likely’ to use mobile greetings.
l It takes 90 minutes for the average
person to respond to an email, it takes
90 seconds for the average person to
respond to a text message.
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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