Launched during lockdown, SmileZ is the start-up that wants to make you smile
SmileZ is the first mobile platform of its kind, allowing customers to send paper-free, personalised digital greeting cards straight to someone’s mobile.
The idea originated during lockdown, founder Kate Bosomworth said, “We were recognising people starting to communicate differently, the need to check-in on family, friends, neighbours to say hi, send a hug, say thank you… suddenly never felt so important, as did making someone smile.”
The site allows customers to choose a card from the galleries, add unlimited personalisation from a range of creative tools, and send immediately to someone’s mobile.
SmileZ has been created in record time by a dynamic and surprisingly small team of entrepreneurial- minded developers, programmers and marketers using leading edge cloud technology.
In addition to a host of galleries showcasing designs from some of the UK’s biggest card designers, to smaller established artists and illustrators, SmileZ will be creating exclusive galleries each month and through the Features Artist programme. Their first featured artist live from 16th June will be the award-winning illustrator Alasdair Spencer who was responsible for the ‘PINT BLOCK’ designs, part of the Government’s ‘THINK!’ campaign.
The galleries, albeit in their early stages, will provide relevant, topical, diverse and inspirational content for customers. Its long-term goal is to create a global community of creatives who can share and showcase their work, building the world’s biggest gallery of constantly changing creative work.
Kate Bosomworth, Founder at SmileZ, said:
“We send more cards in the UK than anywhere in the world…so why not try and introduce something new into this growing market?
Innovation and personalisation are driving the market, so we’ve designed a new way to do this – the ability to send a personalised, well designed card, making it greener and cheaper so everyone can do it more often. There is also a practical benefit. On average we have addresses for less than 10% of the contacts in our phone, but often you want to send that person a card so this overcomes that problem. A lot of people also hate the idea of all that paper and card going to waste, even if it is recyclable. There’s also a generation of people who just don’t send cards in a traditional way because it’s too much hassle, but they do want to do something beyond sending meme, gif or WhatsApp message.”
“We know the market has moved beyond traditional occasion cards, throw in all the reasons above and it feels the right time to do something disruptive in a market worth £1.6BN – the idea of taking the card market a step forward is exciting.”
Colin Frame, Managing Director at Stellar Omada, said:
“We have the most brilliant team, capable of creating innovative technology solutions for a range of markets and doing so faster than anyone. Market conditions are perfect and we believe our shared expertise around the adoption of new patterns of behavior, technology and brand expertise is a winning combo. The site is by no means perfect, we’re improving it every day and are planning some really cool functionalities, but early signs are very encouraging. Sending someone a SmileZ really could become something we all do habitually, very soon.”
SmileZ is the first mobile platform of its kind, allowing customers to send paper-free, personalised digital greeting cards straight to someone’s mobile. Founded in April 2020 by Former CMO at M&C Saatchi Kate Bosomworth and Colin Frame, Managing Director at Stellar Omada, SmileZ collaborates with some of the UK’s largest card designers and most talented illustrators to offer a wide range of galleries of ever-changing content. SmileZ is a new application of existing technologies that intends to digitalise long-established human behaviours.