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The content of greeting cards is changing along with the economics. Hallmark's new "Warm Wishes" line is a strong push to change buying patterns from the traditional occasion-driven purchase to an everyday-anytime buy. Through a piece of weighty-sounding company research called "The Deprivation and Inundation Study," Hallmark concluded, among other things, that folks who typically spurn cards can become converts for social expression, particularly when the cards are cheaper, more casual and punchier. "People want cards that say less," says Jay Dittmann, division vice president of business research.
American Greetings, meanwhile, is making an all-out effort to court men by tailoring its product to menspeak. The company views adult males, who traditionally purchase just 10% of all greeting cards for obligatory occasions like Valentine's Day or anniversaries, as a potential sales boon. Earlier this year, American Greetings launched Intuitions, a hip, quick-witted line of photo cards striving to capture a modern man's sensibility without being flowery. Been quarreling with your sweetheart? Rather than sweat an apology, why not slip her a card showing a pair of boxing gloves with the inside verse, "Are we fighting? Am I winning?" The company believes the conversational language will attract younger buyers too.
Perhaps more cynical in its corporate strategy, industry featherweight Gibson Greetings is abandoning the constrictive moniker of greeting-card company. The company says it's in the "relationship business." Gibson, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, is focusing on potentially lucrative licensing and distribution deals with everyone from celebrity photographer Anne Geddes and popular Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson to whatever character or artist becomes hot. The company has also gone virtual. It neither creates nor manufacturers cards, having closed its Cincinnati manufacturing plant last summer. Very '90s. O'Connell, a former Reebok executive, says Gibson's new focus on distribution will allow the company to keep up with rapidly changing consumer tastes, more so than his rivals. "They don't have people designing cards who intuitively understand their customers' wants and needs," he says. "We're providing what consumers want, not what we make."
The brass ring, though, is the new digital crowd, a paperless generation that may have never penned a letter but contributes to the estimated 3 trillion e-mails sent last year. Still in its infancy, the Web provides the avenue not only for kids but also for men--them again--who account for about 60% of all Internet users. The three big players are currently vying for e-card loyalty in cyberspace with a host of upstarts such as Blue Mountain Arts and Barking Cards, which allow users to add animation, pictures and sound tracks to their cards. For mainstream cardmakers, the trick is to dangle these Internet carrots to entice Web surfers to the card rack. "The Internet will be the catalyst for buying traditional greeting cards," says Ed Fruchtenbaum, president of American Greetings.