love is....being a child of the 70’s. Love is...the decade where John Travolta became a star. Love is...the decade where Star Wars was born. Love is...the decade where the Love is...comic strip bloomed in newspaper syndication worldwide. And just in time to ring in spring, the Love is... StoryGIF App for iOS and Android is born; hitting the Google Play and Apple Store.
Love is...mobile
The contemporary app platform allows Gen Y and Gen Z worldwide to text anyone in their contact list to show they care. The new app lets users select from many images with text and quickly put them together into adorable custom animations that make saying I love you is as easy as hitting send.
Creator of the Love is... StoryGIF, Naz Amarchi-Cuevas, calls the format “snack-sized” entertainment. Perfect description.
The Love is...StoryGIF features the timelessly sweet girl and boy characters (known as Kim and Roberto by insiders) that have been a pop culture hit in newspaper print since 1970. The cartoons originated from a series of love notes that Kim Casali (then Grove) drew for her future husband, Roberto Casali, depicting the both of them to essentially keep a diary of how her feelings had grown.
Amarchi-Cuevas, says the app is geared toward Early Adopters. Do I count? I’m hooked on my Amazon Echo Dot, but I was also one of the first on the block to have the Atari 2600. Just try to beat my high score at Pitfall!
(Gen-Xers get no respect.)
While there are many GIF apps, each has their issues. GIPHY CAM and Gif Forge are fun, but seem a bit harder to use, and are photo-based. Emoji Me is limited to sending an Emoji of yourself, which can get a bit old to your recipients. The real difference with the StoryGIF apps is that they are using well-known classic characters to help users tell their stories in new ways.
There is also no ads popping up everywhere like many of the others, which is nice.
Love is -- simple
StoryGIF apps are simple and easy to use. The beauty is that even if you’re tech-averse, you can still figure them out. Just three easy steps could really make you look like an animated message superstar! 1. Choose GIFs, 2. Write Story with them, 3.
Send. Like the other StoryGIFs (Hello Kitty, Peanuts, Care Bears and more), up to 10 animations can be pieced together on any one message; making this a fun and very inexpensive app, or romantic card, that can be used over and over again.
Love is -- sleeplessness
StoryGIF has launched many-a-characters within this platform. In fact, more animated “buy me” friends show up than I know what to do with everytime I open the app. Do the folks in Berlin ever sleep? They seem to be launching new characters and themed sets of images each and every week! The fortunate and unfortunate thing for consumers is that the GIFs are so adorable, it is really hard to resist buying each and every image snack-pack.
These guys (and girls) may be onto something.
Trendhunters show that “early-adopters,” no matter what their age, are using messaging based apps more and more to communicate; seeing them as more private. It is great to see that something that has been so iconic for nearly 50 years, and in more than 50 countries worldwide, can be shared with younger generations today in the way they like to communicate.
