Punchbowl Blog

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

Over the last few years Punchbowl has partnered with several media and retail companies, including Oriental Trading Company, 1-800-FLOWERS, and Lifetime. I’m very pleased to announce our latest partnership: Punchbowl has signed a technology-licensing agreement with RealSimple.com. This is a substantial deal for both companies, and enables RealSimple.com users to send and receive Digital Greeting Cards. We’re excited to bring our digital cards to Real Simple users in time for the holiday season.

Here’s the full announcement:

Real Simple Partners with Punchbowl to Offer Free Digital Greetings

Framingham, MA, December 2, 2011 – Today, Punchbowl.com, the leader in start to finish party planning and digital greeting cards, announced a technology-licensing agreement with best-selling women’s lifestyle brand Real Simple. The partnership will allow RealSimple.com users to send beautiful, free digital greeting cards for all occasions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We’re excited to add Real Simple as one of our key partners,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl. “The brand wanted to offer their customers a best-in-class digital cards service, and we were able to deliver with our new Digital Greeting Cards technology.”

Digital Greeting Cards on RealSimple.com offer the ability to send thoughtful well-wishes online that have the look and feel of a traditional paper card. They are a suitable alternative to traditional greeting cards complete with attractive folded designs, matching envelopes, realistic postmarks, and the complete mail-opening experience. Additionally, cards can be personalized with accents such as envelope liners, custom postage, and rubber stamps. Digital Greeting Cards are ideal for birthdays, special occasions, life milestones and holidays such as Christmas and New Year’s.

“Partnering with Punchbowl was a natural fit for Real Simple,” said Shannon King, General Manager, RealSimple.com. “Readers turn to Real Simple for inspiring ideas and practical solutions particularly around holidays and entertaining this time of year, and Punchbowl provides a premium Digital Greeting Card service which we feel fits perfectly within that strategy.”

Punchbowl has received critical acclaim and industry recognition for its usability and simplicity. The award-winning site is a leading destination for start to finish party planning and digital greeting cards. In addition to Real Simple, Punchbowl has several other licensing agreements in place with leading media and retail companies.

To send free Digital Greeting Cards on Real Simple, visit: https://greetingcards.realsimple.com

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

Last month, we announced our partnership with 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. This month, I’m pleased to announce another new partnership: we’ve partnered with Lifetime Moms to launch the Lifetime Moms Party Planner. We’re excited to bring our party planning suite to Lifetime Moms in time for the holiday season.

Here’s the full announcement from AETN Digital, the content provider for Lifetime Moms:

AETN Digital Partners with Punchbowl to Offer Party Planning Service to Moms

New York, N.Y., October 19, 2010 – AETN Digital and Punchbowl today announced the launch of the Lifetime Moms Party Planner, a free party-planning service that moms can use to effortlessly plan all of their holiday celebrations.

The Lifetime Moms Party Planner powered by Punchbowl is available on LifetimeMoms.com, an online resource for moms, by moms, offering original content in 10 verticals including parenting, health, pregnancy, food, home, beauty & style, and product reviews. The Lifetime Moms Party Planner includes all of the core party planning features of Punchbowl.com.

“Lifetime Moms is for real moms who have busy lives and face real challenges,” said Kim Dobson, VP, Lifetime Moms. “We chose Punchbowl because of their ability to provide a high-quality party planning solution that will make life a little easier for the Lifetime Moms audience.”

The innovative features of the Lifetime Moms Party Planner make it ideal for planning Halloween parties, Christmas parties, New Year’s parties, and even Thanksgiving dinner. The Date Decider helps hosts get group consensus on the ideal party date—one of the biggest challenges during the busy holiday season. Digital Invitation Studio offers hundreds of stylish and modern invitations and save the dates, each with companion envelopes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and stunning color palettes. The Potluck allows guests to easily sign up to bring items and allows hosts to effortlessly manage who’s bringing what. Hosts can also keep track of their RSVP list with ease and share party details with their social networks.

“Savvy moms love to use Punchbowl’s start to finish party planning platform to plan birthdays, holiday parties and other family events,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl Software. “Punchbowl is excited to bring our party planning suite to Lifetime Moms this holiday season.”

To create a free account, visit the Lifetime Moms Party Planner: http://lifetimemoms.punchbowl.com

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

I’m excited to tell you about a new partnership for Punchbowl. As you might know, in addition to running Punchbowl.com, we also work with leading retailers and media companies. Our newest partner is 1-800-FLOWERS.COM who we’ve partnered with to launch the Celebrations Party Planner.

Here’s the full announcement from Celebrations.com, a subsidiary of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM:

CELEBRATIONS® Teams up with Punchbowl.com to Offer Party Planning Service

CARLE PLACE, N.Y., Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ — Just in time for the upcoming holiday season, Celebrations the premier online destination for fabulous party ideas and planning tips located at celebrations.com, has joined forces with Punchbowl.com to launch the Celebrations Party Planner. With this additional Party Planner capability, Celebrations, a subsidiary of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, Inc. (FLWS), is a one stop resource for all of your party planning needs.

The Celebrations Party Planner, powered by Punchbowl, is a free service that includes the core party planning features of Punchbowl.com. The Celebrations Party Planner complements the planning content already found on Celebrations.com, including expert advice, exclusive tips, and recipe, theme and decor ideas.

“Punchbowl provides a high-quality innovative party planning platform from start to finish,” said Jim McCann, Founder of Celebrations. “We are excited to offer our customers a convenient way to plan their parties and events on Celebrations.com.”

The innovative features of the Celebrations Party Planner makes it ideal for planning Halloween parties, Christmas parties, New Year’s parties, and even Thanksgiving dinner. The Date Decider helps hosts get a group consensus on the ideal party date—one of the biggest challenges during the busy holiday season. Design Studio offers hundreds of stylish and modern invitations and save the dates, each with companion envelopes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and stunning color palettes. The Potluck allows guests to easily sign up to bring items and hosts are able to effortlessly manage potluck details In addition, hosts are able to keep track of their RSVP list with ease and share party elements with their social networks.

“We are delighted to work with Celebrations to bring our party planning platform to their customers,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl Software. “Punchbowl shares the Celebrations commitment to help customers connect and build lasting memories with the important people in their lives.”

To learn more and create a free account, visit the Celebrations Party Planner: http://celebrations.punchbowl.com.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO, @mattdouglas

Whew! It’s been a very busy week with two big announcements. I wanted to take a few minutes to share our great news with our blog readers. On Tuesday morning, we sent out two press releases:

1) MyPunchbowl inks a deal with Oriental Trading

2) MyPunchbowl expands leadership team with veterans of Evite.com and Pizza Hut

Here’s a little more information about each release:

We announced a multi-year technology-licensing agreement with Oriental Trading Company, the nation’s largest direct merchant of value-priced party supplies, arts and crafts, toys and novelties. The deal includes deep technology and product integration, including the development of a party planning site for Oriental Trading called Party Planner. We’ve been close partners with Oriental Trading for about a year now, and this is a significant expansion of our relationship. It gives us the resources to keep making MyPunchbowl great.

Second, I’m proud to announce that the former General Manager of Evite.com, Harry Lin, has joined the Punchbowl Board of Advisors. During his tenure at Evite, Harry fueled brand growth and the site experienced 50% growth in revenue. Prior to operating Evite, Harry was vice president of ABC.com where he led new initiatives in e-commerce. He is currently President at Photometria Inc., the technology company behind Taaz.com, a site for virtual makeovers. This is a great win for our Board.

Additionally, brand-marketing expert Bob Perkins has joined the Board of Directors. Bob Perkins, former SVP of Marketing for Pizza Hut and head of Global Marketing and Licensing for Calvin Klein, has a distinguished career managing global brands. Bob also served as President of Chiat/Day New York and lead director for 24/7 Real Media Inc. where he led the company to a successful acquisition. He is currently President of Consensus Research Group, providing global strategic research and consulting for leading consumer brands and media companies.

The pair joins a distinguished group of experts on our Board of Directors and Board of Advisors.

Want to learn more about these announcements? Read the official Oriental Trading partnership announcement and the official announcement about the expansion of our leadership team.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

Today we are excited to announce our partnership with Oriental Trading Company. As the leader in start to finish party planning, MyPunchbowl now offers the huge range of Oriental Trading products to our customers. Here’s the official announcement: 

MyPunchbowl.com today announced the launch of MyPunchbowl Party Supplies in partnership with Oriental Trading Company. The new Party Supplies portal powered by Oriental Trading is the perfect complement to MyPunchbowl’s award-winning start to finish party planning site. The announcement was made in conjunction with the start of the Shop.org tradeshow in Las Vegas.

As customers plan events and parties on MyPunchbowl.com, they can now shop from a massive selection of Oriental Trading Company’s best-selling party supplies. MyPunchbowl Party Supplies is organized by occasion and matches the types of parties that are most often planned on MyPunchbowl.com — kids and adult birthdays, baby showers, as well as Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s parties.

“We are thrilled to offer our fun and affordable Oriental Trading party supplies to the loyal customers of MyPunchbowl.com,” said Sam Taylor, CEO, Oriental Trading Company. “The common characteristics of our customers make this partnership a win-win solution for our business.”

Through technology developed by MyPunchbowl, inventory from Oriental Trading is updated on a nightly basis. The party supplies portal displays featured products as well as best sellers. After planning an event, MyPunchbowl.com customers can quickly and easily find party supplies that match the theme of the event they are planning. The site also features an integrated search engine to find relevant products among tens of thousands offered on the site.

“We found the ideal partner in Oriental Trading Company,” said Matt Douglas, CEO, Punchbowl Software. “As the nation’s largest direct marketer of party supplies, Oriental Trading provides our customers with party supplies that meet our customers’ wide array of party planning needs.”

Shop MyPunchbowl Party Supplies.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

We’re really excited today to announce our partnership with Excitations, the nation’s premier provider of unique experience gifts. Through this partnership, we now provide MyPunchbowl Experiences on our site.

Experience gifts, which range from hot air balloon rides to gourmet cooking classes, create memories for the recipient that will last a lifetime. They are exciting and unique, so it’s easy to see why these gifts are the newest way to celebrate milestone birthdays—including sweet sixteen, 21, 30, 40, and even 100.

MyPunchbowl Experiences offers an extraordinary selection of experiences that will engage the recipient’s personality and passions—ranging from skydiving, first flight lesson, helicopter tour, and stock car driving to model for a day, create your own wine, glass blowing and a private safari. The possibilities, like the memories they create, are endless—and there is something for every budget and age to enjoy.

MyPunchbowl Experiences is the latest addition to the start to finish party planning capabilities that are available on MyPunchbowl. Unlike other party planning sites that start and stop with the invitation, MyPunchbowl brings your party to life with ideas, invitations, party favors, gift registries, and even photo and video sharing, and more. With the addition of MyPunchbowl Experiences, you can now make your next party an unforgettable experience party.

Check out the official announcement and share it with your friends!