Each year, there are over 10 trillion text messages sent globally, and almost 2 trillion are sent from brands to customers alone. The standard SMS message is inert, with black text inside of bubbles, lacking visuals and interactivity. OpenMessage empowers brands to communicate with their customers through highly engaging messages that integrate sound, sight and motion. The company offers a fully integrated, customer-centric platform built for brands and publishers to customize, deploy and manage highly visual and interactive mobile messaging conversations.

“Text messaging continues to be the leading form of communication with a significant open rate of 98% compared to a 20% email open rate,” said Jake Lazarus, co-founder and CEO of OpenMessage. “Through OpenMessage, text messages come to life with our proprietary, breakthrough technology that allows consumers to engage with the brands they love most in the way they find most natural. Our partners – brands, retailers, publishers, and advertisers – recognize texting is the preferred communication method among consumers, and is not only a way to reach them, but to engage them.”

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OpenMessage’s suite of services power real-time engagement for customers including ACE Comic Con, Blade, an on-demand aviation platform, The Farmer’s Dog, a pet food startup, and the PGA’s Ellie Mae Classic. The company has also partnered with Tony Robbins and Nunbelievable, an organic bakery operated by nuns, which donates a portion of its proceeds to soup kitchens across the country. Additionally, OpenMessage is collaborating with  Phony Content, the team behind the popular Instagram page phonytexts, which produces creative stories using text messaging. Together, OpenMessage and Phony Content are creating phonybrands, a channel that will feature stories told through OpenMessage.

As OpenMessage continues to grow, it has appointed Fred Di Blasio as its new Chief Commercial Officer to lead enterprise sales and business development. He previously served as a Vice President of AT&Tand Telus, a leading Canadian telecommunications company, and as the Chief Marketing Officer of Invidi, where he played an integral role in the company’s acquisition by AT&T, Dish Network, and the WPP Group.

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“I am delighted to join the amazing team at OpenMessage,” said Di Blasio. “They understand that the future of commerce will be built on messaging, and they’re transforming the space in a way that no other company has before, taking it from grey bubbles and black text to a dynamic, visual, interactive and personalized experience on the platform that people use the most – text messaging.”

“There has been a fundamental shift in human attention to mobile,” said Adam Kostman, co-founder and COO of OpenMessage. “At OpenMessage, we feel messaging is a massively untapped medium, and creativity, interactivity, and conversational commerce will enable brands to take full advantage of the messaging space. We’re excited to drive the next wave of direct customer relationships through text and chat, and we can’t think of a better fit than Fred to help lead the charge in customer wins.”

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