Friends Reunited hopes to boost brands’ credibility

Brands are being offered a location on the site, called “Brand Box”, to showcase their heritage by embedding imagery, videos, audio and catalogue viewers for consumers to engage with.

Matt Bushby, UK head of Friends Reunited, says the proposition gives companies the opportunity to show “more depth” to their brands.

He adds: “This is exactly the right time [for brands to partner with Friends Reunited] especially when you look at how brands like Volkswagen, John Lewis and NatWest are taking on a more nostalgic view to their advertising.

“In this recessionary climate it gives brands the opportunity to show off the more rose-tinted view of how things used to be .”

Friends Reunited claims the proposition is superior to brands creating a history page on their own websites or on other platforms such as Tumblr because its site reaches 1.5 to 2 million people each month who are actively looking to curate and discover memories.

The beta version of the repositioned Friends Reunited site will go live on 27 March and will be positioned to consumers as the home of nostalgia and memories.

The proposition will be less focused on reuniting with former classmates and will encourage members to share memories from classic events such as the 1966 World Cup to wider nostalgia such as seventies’ fashion.

The website is partnering with The Press Association and photographic archive company Francis Firth to visually showcase some of the more famous memories.

Friends Reunited had more than 20 million registered users at the peak of its popularity in the early 2000s but its visitor numbers have since dwindled as consumers migrated to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

The site was bought by ITV seven years ago for £175m and was subsequently sold to Brightsolid, owned by publisher DC Thomson, for just £25m in 2010.