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At Cause UK, we recently began working with the French company, Famileo. Their app is incredibly popular in France, and we've been tasked with helping raise awareness of it here…
At Cause UK, we recently began working with the French company, Famileo. Their app is incredibly popular in France, and we’ve been tasked with helping raise awareness of it here in the UK as it expands to the UK, Spain and the US.
To date, we’ve written a handful of case studies on the benefits of the app and how it helps bring generations of families closer together. We’ve done a bespoke feature in the Yorkshire Post, and press releases have resulted in coverage in the Sunday Mirror, the Metro and The Sun, nationally.
Our story below was also picked up as editorial in print to over 50 regional newspapers and ran across 200 news sites online. Media monitoring tools calculate that’s an online readership of 276M, with an advertising equivalent value of £426k!
As the holiday season is well and truly underway, new research finds more than half of young people have never sent a postcard.
New research, conducted by YouGov, reveals the sharp decline in people sending and receiving postcards in recent years. Over half (61%) of those surveyed haven’t received one in over five years. Despite this, over half of people say that postcards are a great way to communicate with those who aren’t on social media.
Famileo, a digital family app that crosses digital divides and has taken France by storm, is now available in the UK this summer.
Family members use the app to add photos and messages, which are compiled into a personalised newspaper that is printed and posted to their relative – usually an elderly grandparent.
It means holiday snaps often shared on social media can now be shared with grandparents who aren’t digitally savvy or on social media.
The app was the brainchild of Tanguy de Gélis, who was inspired by his own grandma.
Tanguy used a WhatsApp group to keep in touch with his extended relatives. He bought his grandma an iPad one Christmas so she could join in.
Tanguy said: “One day when I went to visit her, I noticed the iPad on her table gathering dust. She told me it wasn’t easy for her to use and that she missed the family postcards and letters she used to get. So that got me thinking about an app with a digital interface for young people and a newspaper for the elderly.”
Famileo initially launched in France in 2015 where it has over 200,000 families – around 1.5 million people – using the app.
It’s proven a big hit with grandchildren and grandparents as an easy way to cross digital divides and keep in touch.
Each newspaper, or gazette, includes as many as 30 messages and can be delivered around the world. The idea is to help families, no matter where they are or how busy their lifestyle, stay in touch.
The Famileo app has also been a godsend for families with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren who live and work all over the world.
“Famileo is a wonderful tool for keeping our family in touch and for sharing the memories we are making – for all of us,” said Karen Ferguson, 65, who uses it for her 90-year-old mum, Nancy.
“Mum says she really looks forward to each one, and the family life and holiday photos in those pages. It’s also a connection. I’m able to do something, from a distance, which gives my mum pleasure,” she said. “We refer to it as ‘WhatsApp for the elderly’. Even for families who aren’t as far flung as mine, it’s a wonderful tool for keeping in touch and sharing.”
Tanguy said: “It can have a profound impact on the family dynamic. As well as being an easy way for grandchildren to write to their grandparents, it also helps build connection and reduce feelings of loneliness. It’s an app that brings joy to grandparents.”
Notes to editors
Famileo
Famileo was founded in 2015 in France by entrepreneur Tanguy de Gélis and his business partner, Armel de Lesquen.
Around 200,000 families now use the service and over one million messages have been sent through Famileo.
The company employs more than 50 people. Famileo’s newspapers, or gazettes, are read by people in over 50 countries and they are now available in English, Spanish and Dutch. Subscriptions are available in euros, dollars and pounds.