`Turning Points … these are the moments when the world holds its breath for you, moments of decision that change your life forever.
— Text of a new Hallmark card
`Thinking of You,” reads a recently released Hallmark card illustrated with a watercolor of a lake in the woods. “I’m thinking of you today, and I want you to know you’ll always be a special part of my life.”
You might not think such sentiments would be the stuff of revolution, but then you probably don’t know the greeting-card industry as well as the trend watchers at Hallmark and American Greetings. The two heavyweights of the business have proclaimed the start of what they see as a radical transformation of the industry, readying their companies and their customers for the challenges of the new millennium.
Hallmark has announced that its cards will respond to such seemingly un-Hallmarky social and cultural issues as airline deregulation, downsizing, “terminal illness, natural disasters, cloning, the global community and the Internet,” as Hallmark Creative Advisory Group director Marita Wesley-Clough put it.
Meanwhile, American Greetings is in the midst of an even bigger transformation, replacing some 80 percent of its product line with new stock. “We’re talking over 100 million cards that will be replaced over an 18-month period,” says John Hernandis, director of corporate communications at American Greetings. “It’s a massive revamping of the product line.”
American Greetings’ new card line, The All New American Way, promises to address America’s “changing lifestyle and demographic trends which are signaling new consumer communications needs.” The new cards offer a response, of sorts, to such disparate demographic realities as longer lives, dual-career families and casual days at the office.
“We found that things were really changing out in the marketplace and that it required a massive change in terms of what our everyday card line looked like,” says Sharon Cole Schneider, executive director of product management at American Greetings.
“This is not your mother’s greeting card,” the company proclaims.
Perhaps. But this revolution might not be readily apparent to anyone but, well, your mother. Looking through the cards in both new lines, anyone not intimately familiar with the world of greeting cards might be hard pressed to notice changes amid the flowery sentiments and pastel pictures.
“We’re thinking caring thoughts of you,” reads one of the new Hallmark cards, illustrated with a garland of colorful flowers, “wishing you exactly what you need to see you through.”
“Sometimes, at difficult moments we discover strengths we didn’t know we had,” reads another, illustrated with a delicate watercolor of a rainbow over a field.
“Friends are like Angels,” announces a new American Greetings card, also illustrated with a pastel rainbow (and some rainbow glitter).
Other American Greetings cards blandly celebrate turning points in life (“Congratulations on Your New Venture”) or try to assure the recipients that they haven’t been forgotten (“I hope you always know how important you are, even though I may not always tell you”).
And while American Greetings relies less on the flowers and rainbows than Hallmark, few of its All New American Way cards get any edgier than those imploring recipients to “Believe in miracles” and “Leap before you look.” Most of the cards Schneider describes over the phone seem to involve cute bears of some sort.
Indeed, the contrast between the gentle nature of the cards and the often harsh realities they are intended to address is quite striking.
“The implications of a steady increase in chronic disease; downsizing; rehab treatment and recovery; caregiver stress; depression; troubled teens and nontraditional families have not been lost on Hallmark,” an exhaustive company press release declares. “Hallmark consumers now have more options than ever before in how they express their feelings about these hugely varied bumps in life’s road. . . . Hallmark cards can help people find the right words.” The company is even developing a card to deal with suicide, says Hallmark spokeswoman Rachel Bolton.
Meanwhile, American Greetings’ Trend Central Group reports that it has discovered nine major trends transforming our world. Because people are living longer, for example, the company introduced both ” `youthful’ cards for seniors” and cards designed to comfort those living with long-term illness. Americans also seem to like “humor with an attitude,” so the company promised a “new, irreverent, sarcastic tone” in some of its cards.
“I think one of the most significant (changes) is the trend of the ever-growing impersonal world,” says Schneider. “From our research we saw that there was a significant growth in what we call `anytime’ cards” — that is, cards that don’t have to be sent on any particular occasion — “and we have found that in a world that is very isolated, very fast-paced, very technologically oriented, that people are really looking for ways to keep in touch on a much more personal level.”
Although the new lines may reflect, as American Greetings President Ed Fruchtenbaum has said, “a magnitude of change in greeting cards seen only once each generation,” the cards themselves demonstrate that that change can be difficult to detect.
The reason for the companies’ caution is demographics. While movie producers and big advertisers fight to the death over chunks of the 18-34 age group, Hallmark and American Greetings have a different audience in mind — one that is relatively set in its ways. The “core” card buyer, as marketers at Hallmark and American Greetings know well, is a woman in her 40s or older — not exactly the nose-rings and tattoo type.
These women aren’t the only card buyers, of course. As Bolton points out, “alternative” cards — such as the slightly snottier gag cards in Hallmark’s Shoebox line, and the cards put out by smaller companies that address racy topics Hallmark would never touch — now account for a third of the $7 billion card market, and their share is rapidly growing.
But don’t expect the big card makers to abandon their older customers. What they’re doing, rather, is preparing themselves for the time when the younger crowd hits the magic age of 40 — and starts buying cards big time.
“What we observe in our research is that coming behind (our core buyer), beginning to show up in the marketplace, is the younger consumer whose lifestyle is different than her mother’s lifestyle,” says Hernandis. “And we want to be ready for that consumer when she moves into the peak years.”
And since the younger consumer is used to blunter talk and more open expressions of emotion, you can expect this candor to show up in the cards as well. But don’t expect the typical Hallmark or American Greeting offering to become much more brash than it is today. Hallmark — which introduced a discreetly worded divorce card as long ago as the 1950s — has learned over the years that its customers prefer delicacy to directness.
People often turn to greeting cards in difficult situations when they don’t know what to say — and in many cases they’re looking for euphemisms from the start. Bolton says the fact that Hallmark is addressing such delicate issues as “a person choosing a lifestyle that a family can’t come to terms with, a disfigurement, drugs” is in itself a step forward. In the past, Americans were hesitant to offer words of support for friends or families dealing with such “unspeakable” things.
“People have tended to avoid them like the plague, not talk about them, keep them secret,” Bolton says. “And that sends the message: `I don’t care.’ Which is the opposite of what you feel, but people don’t know what to say and it scares them.
“There have always been cards to say `I’m sorry,’ or `Get well soon,’ or `Thinking of you,’ with cheerful birds and flowers,” Bolton continues. “But when your life has been devastated, that doesn’t help.”
But even as Americans learn to open up more when it comes to their emotions, they still feel a need for some self-restraint. And that, Bolton argues, is just as well.
“You would never want to send a card saying: `Sorry you have cancer,’ ” Bolton says. “People don’t want to say it, they don’t want to hear it, but they want to know that you understand it. You want to send a card that lets a person know that you know their specific situation, but there’s no need to put clinical labels on it.”
