How Hallmark stopped being a house of cards and became a media player.
For most businesses, the creative process starts with a blank page. For Hallmark, it usually starts with a blank card – 19,000 of them to be exact, the number of new designs the company makes each year.
But Hallmark is no longer just a card company. As Paul Barker, senior vice president of creative development, says: “We’re really about developing emotional content.” That emotional content is now sold as greetings cards, on the web and through an own-brand TV channel with a global reach.
Hallmark may be famous for its slightly cheesy greetings cards but the company, founded in 1910 when Joyce Clyde Hall started selling two shoeboxes-worth of postcards in Kansas City, has promoted staff creativity and invested heavily in design.
“Creativity and design are Hallmark’s bread and butter,” says UK marketing director Louise Hudson. “We send a card to celebrate some of the most important days in people’s lives – and the creativity has to be spot-on to suit the occasion.”
Hallmark’s philosophy and work environment are designed to encourage creative thought. The global headquarters – still in Kansas – boasts one of the world’s biggest creative libraries. Its 20,000 volumes and 175 current periodicals offer ongoing inspiration for the 800 in-house creative staff.
Hallmark also organises regular lectures for its staff – recent speakers have included the acclaimed writer Maya Angelou and the Dutch nature artist Marjolein Bastin.
Members of our creative staff have described working at Hallmark as “like getting paid to go to graduate school”
Staff who feel they may be losing their edge can, says Kristi Ernsting, Hallmark’s US spokesperson, “join what we call ‘creative renewal programmes’, ranging from classes on working with Hallmark’s colour management process to workshops on sculpting and doll-making. Members of our creative staff have described working at Hallmark as ‘like getting paid to go to graduate school’.”
Regular creative brainstorming trips are organised at Hallmark’s Kearney Farm retreat – an old farmhouse set in a 172-acre estate with its own art studio. There are also research visits to places such as the Czech Republic, Israel and Mexico.
There is, though, nothing woolly and bohemian about Hallmark’s approach to product development. It can cost £40,000 to produce a new card and a card is typically expected to generate £85,000 in sales. Slogans on the wall of some offices remind staff how much a duff card costs the company in lost sales. And with 56% of the US greeting-cards market, this approach has helped maintain Hallmark’s leadership in its traditional sector.
The company takes trendspotting so seriously it hires people specifically to watch out for them. Modern innovations include free e-cards that can be sent via Hallmark’s website, the option of creating bespoke cards online and the recently introduced ‘Say it with music’ line.
The range might be cornily named, but these CD-quality sound cards featuring more than 100 music artists as well as dialogue and theme songs from popular movies and TV shows has been, Hudson says, “a huge phenomenon in the US. They feature the original artists – not someone doing a bad cover version – and the song links to the caption and sentiment of the card.” In just over a year, the range has expanded from 24 designs to more than 250. The cards even appear on websites such as YouTube – with people lip-synching along to the cards’ 45-second music clips.
Last summer, Hallmark launched its own women’s magazine, a diversification which is a symptom of the group’s growing confidence. In 2002, when Hallmark launched an own-brand cable channel, it set a public goal of becoming one of the top 10 cable channels in the US within five years. Hallmark TV didn’t meet that target – it beat it, becoming the ninth most watched channel in the US last year. The success surprised many, but not Hallmark. Henry Schleff, who runs Hallmark’s entertainment division, says: “There is an insatiable demand for what is a fairly limited supply of family friendly programming.” The company’s revenue now stands at £2.1bn and is growing. Proof that creativity doesn’t have to be trendy to succeed.
Article first published in Design Council Magazine, Issue 2, Summer 2007