Greeting Cards
IF GREETING CARDS ARE Band-Aids for broken relationships, then it
may be time for their makers to find some better adhesives.
The nation's purveyors of social expression have no formal
mechanism for tapping the national mood or figuring out the relationship
needs of Americans. Industry giants Hallmark and Gibson admit that the
greetings they proffer are not the result of a very scientific process.
In fact, they rely more on a random blast of staffer intuition than on
national surveys, focus groups, or mall interviews.
"We try to hire all types of people-old, young single parents, and
married couples " - to write cards that express the way people live and
communicate, reports Sally Groves, Hallmark's creative director.
Years into the flowering of the recovery movement, the company
recently launched its "Just for Today" line, which targets those
recovering from various addictions. It is the brainchild of a staff
writer moved by his own experience as a recovering alcoholic.
Consumer requests and follow-up surveys indicated that people were
looking for a way to support those freeing themselves of dependency. But
Hallmark never consulted a staff psychologist. That's because, like other
card companies, it doesn't have one-even though its business is devoted
to deciphering the American psyche.
If given a chance, however, professional keepers of the American
psyche would offer greeting-card makers the following advice:
o Get hip to the modern household and its diversity of
relationships. California psychologist Carole Lieberman would like to see
more cards for divorced couples on good terms, and cards addressing step-
and half-children, parents, grandparents, and other kin affected by a
break-up.
o Get specific. Today's greeting cards virtually ignore AIDS,
cancer, heart disease, and mental illness. Greeting cards might be a
tasteful, non-offensive way of connecting to and acknowledging people
isolated by disease in a hospital or at home.
o Trash the sugar-coated prose. Most cards err on the side of
pretense, either too stiff or too flowery. Recipients don't know what to
make of modern card-style poetry: "Is it friendly love, marry me love, or
just a cute joke?" asks Lieberman.
Gibson Greetings may have an answer. Their new "Life As We Know It"
line includes cards that express four different intensities of love. Says
Laura Guder, head of product development: 'People just don't have time to
write love letters any more.
PHOTO: The new greeting cards of today are here! More specific,
realistic, and less sugar-coated. (COURTESY OF GIBSON GREETINGS,
INC.)
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