Image Credit : Congrats
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Project Overview
Congrats is a first-of-its kind gifting app that connects people anywhere at any time through personalized video greetings and gifts to celebrate special occasions and milestones. A game-changer within the greeting card industry, Congrats provides an entirely new and innovative platform, which allows users to easily collaborate with others to create and send memorable greetings and personalized gifts sent instantly and securely via smartphone.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Alan Hunt, Chief Executive Officer; Andy Lepore, Cofounder and Head of Product Development; Sunil Rawal, Chief Technology Officer; Jessica Tishue, Director of Marketing
Project Brief
Congrats is the first app that truly changes the way consumers are celebrating life’s special moments and milestones. The video recording feature allows users to send and receive personal greetings, a tangible connection lacking in traditional and online greeting cards. Whether a sender wants to create a one-on-one video greeting or loop in friends and family to collaborate on a joint video, recipients will always be gifted with something truly special and one-of-a-kind.
In addition to allowing users to create and share personalized greetings, the app also enables (and encourages) people to send thoughtful gifts, via Giftly.
To simplify the experience and ensure one never misses an upcoming event or a friend’s birthday, the app links with Facebook® and reminds users of their contacts’ upcoming birthdays. The free app provides a clean, modern and easy-to-use interface to celebrate special occasions. Through a simple process, Congrats allows everyone, from students and parents to loved ones abroad, to record and send a personal video message and special gifts. Upon receipt, the video can be downloaded and saved to a mobile device?no app required!?and the Giftly, once redeemed, is added to the recipient’s credit or debit card for immediate use.
Project Need
Today, we live in a technology-driven world where consumers are extremely dependent on their smartphones. While many industries have kept up with society’s demands for instant and constant communication with emerging technologies such as text messaging, email and social media, the greeting card industry has not revolutionized at a similar pace. As technology continues to infiltrate in our lives, Congrats aims to use its power to bring friends and loved ones closer in the digital space.
In addition to being completely committed to changing the way consumers recognize life’s memorable moments, making the experience more user-friendly and efficient, Congrats is devoted to caring for the environment. Recognizing the existing limitations within the greeting card industry, such as lack of face-to-face connection, time and cost investment for the entire gifting process, Congrats strives to enhance the process, while removing the physical implications of greeting cards. With a majority of greeting cards ending up in landfills, Congrats is dedicated to reducing the industry’s carbon footprint, minimizing the need to rely on paper or transportation to acknowledge a special moment, and instead allowing users to utilize their frequently-used smartphones.
In another effort to decrease the gifting industry’s carbon footprint on the planet, Congrats partnered with PATT (Plant a Tree Today) Foundation, and is committed to planting trees in the world’s most deforested regions whenever greetings are delivered with Congrats.
User Experience
Congrats’ provides users with a simple, easy-to-use interface for recording video greetings and sending thoughtful gifts instantly and seamlessly.
Users can easily record sentimental, one-on-one greetings or have the option to collaborate with up to 19 friends and loved ones to create a group message. All video greetings can be customized depending on the celebration – whether a birthday or anniversary – and further personalized with unique filters, frames and handwritten signatures.
Once the greeting is complete, users can send a Giftly – a cash gift – ranging from $1 to $1,000, and include a suggestion for how the recipient can spend the cash. The greeting and gift can be sent via email or SMS and saved to a computer or smartphone and accessed by the recipient forever and additionally, shared across social media channels including Facebook, Twitter and Google+. To redeem the Giftly, recipients can simply add the cash to their credit or debit card and access it immediately.
Project Marketing
Congrats’ marketing strategy, backed by extensive market research, experience, and intuition, is specifically designed to engage the millennial generation. With the use of strategic partnerships, social influencer campaigns, engaging contests, Congrats is able to meet its target audience in the places where they are socializing, exploring and engaging most – online. Once this highly targeted content reaches Congrats’ audience, it invites the consumer into the gifting app’s ecosystem, where the relationship can truly begin.
Project Privacy
Congrats’ studied the standard practices of the most active social networks and its privacy policy is consistent with policies of existing social apps, such as Vine and Instagram. The legal team carefully and strategically reviewed all implications of allowing social sharing of media via video, which were then reflected in the app’s privacy policy.
Best Mobile or App Startup
This category relates to Startups working on a Mobile project or an App. The project could be for smartphones, tablet, web, game console or api apps. Startup projects need to be newly emerging, less than 5 million users and less than 3 years old.
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