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Rawr Messenger, the avatar-based messaging app, today announces the launch of an official Chelsea Football Club digital store, in which users can browse and purchase unique club items for their character to wear. The special products can be purchased with in-app currency, which can be bought outright, and which also accrues over time spent using the app.
Available within the store are the 2016/17 Chelsea home and goalkeeper shirts and shorts, training apparel, football boots, and hats and scarves. Users can receive a free Chelsea beanie hat by hashtagging #CFC to the in-app chat bot ‘Tim Rawr’, which is designed to help guide users learn how to app works. This is the first time ever that 3D wearable items are available to purchase within a messaging app.
The launch of the Chelsea Football Club digital store marks a significant step for both Rawr, the first product from Finnish developers Futurefly, and the messaging app industry as a whole. While a number of other apps have attracted tens of millions of users, monetisation has remained a challenge. According to Juniper Research, a UK-based research organisation, the global messaging business is set to shrink over the next few years, from $113.5 billion in 2014 to $112.9 billion in 2019. It also found that revenue from texting on chat apps will make up just 1% of all the revenue generated by SMS and chat traffic in 2019, with the majority of the $113bn coming from traditional SMS messages sent over carrier networks.
With massive user acquisition not equating to profitable returns, Rawr is instead inviting leading global brands to create a commercial (yet unobtrusive) presence within the app, and take the majority of the revenues created through the selling of special items. This opens-up important revenue streams for Futurefly, while simultaneously providing additional and unique content for its users to enjoy. The brands that partner with Futurefly will benefit by gaining access to a new and credible route to target audiences, as well as new young users.
Chelsea FC Chairman Bruce Buck comments: ‘This is an important step for the club as we look to engage and entertain our many millions of fans. This ground-breaking relationship with Rawr puts us at the front of the pack when it comes to digital innovation among sports clubs, and we cannot wait to see how Chelsea supporters interact with each other, and their other friends, all over the world.’
Oskari ‘Ozz’ Häkkinen, the Anglo-Finnish Founder and Chief Product Officer of Futurefly (and Chelsea supporter) adds: “We are delighted that Chelsea Football Club has recognised the potential of opening a digital store within Rawr. As brands across the world seek to engage with new customers in increasingly innovative ways, we believe that this partnership will be a landmark moment for the messaging industry as a whole.
“Our strategy from day one was to create a platform which would be attractive to brands, and while other messaging apps are still trying to find the right formula for monetisation, Rawr provides brands a way to tap into the messaging market, while offering a generous revenue split which other apps are unable to match.”
About Rawr Messenger
The free-to-use Rawr app, available on iOS and Android, enables friends to design personalised avatars, through which they can chat to each other by text and, uniquely, interact through hundreds of entertaining animations, expressions, and dynamic emojis. The app’s ‘Globetrotter’ option, (modelled as a modern-day equivalent to pen pals) which allows random users from all over the world to be paired together and chat anonymously and safely, has already attracted over 8 million conversations.
About Futurefly
San Francisco and Helsinki-based Futurefly is backed by early investors in Snapchat, WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook, as well as Arielle Zuckerberg. To date, Futurefly has raised $3million in seed funding, following an injection of $2.5 million in September 2015, to help launch Rawr. The company is able to call upon expertise from a prestigious collection of backers, with a proven track record of working with mobile messaging and social media giants.
Futurefly follows in the footsteps of world-famous Finnish tech precedents such as Nokia, Supercell (Clash of Clans) and Rovio (Angry Birds).
App Store:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/rawr-messenger-3d-avatar-chat/id994119740?mt=8
Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.futurefly.chatapp