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Detours: Hallmark, Kansas City, and the decline of the greeting card industry

2013-09-04
happy birthday he make me feel so no note I'd say love congratulations on your new baby thank you God for our own baby and help us to be worthy of the trust in those little eyes happy Valentine's Day love mom and dad Christmas car like this one moment hugs and kisses to you seems just have a very Merry Christmas to a dad who's a package is you're more than just my dad you're my very best pal - Merry Christmas we love xxx oh we love you mommy and daddy some breslav lilies pearl white god fashion lovely skin forgive me nazi truffle eyes and then formed your baby chin another flawed next he used a rosebud taking fair tested to your dipper cheeks and and made it blossom mare this world and all within he created created here for man but baby was God's masterpiece since time of life begins congratulations and best wishes to all of you I'm not comparing no cars to the internet or whatever but to me it means a lot more to have somebody sit down and pick on a car or even better yet make a car people really still appreciate things like that hallmark the fountains the plaza you know barbecue that's ones can't cities known for just would be can city without harm or there's not much to a greeting card it's just a folded up piece of paper there's a thoughtful or funny message inside but behind every single one of these readings is actually a multi-billion dollar industry and at the center of it all is hallmark the largest greeting card company in the world and one of Kansas City's largest employers your grandmother gave me this nose ring and now I'm giving it to you start a new tradition and have a happy birthday so these are just raw card ideas that have not yet been finished like this is one that somebody turned in and it's a drawing of a tiny little hole punch and it just says inside I love you a hole punch which seems really cheesy and silly but then we get to this finished idea and then there's the bonus surprise of the lasered out hearts when you're talking about asking someone to pay upwards of you know really starting around two dollars or more for something there has to be something that's connecting it to you so I think we're just always looking for that kind of shared common experience that people have together if if someone gives someone a funny greeting card I'm out of that equation by that they're not giving someone a card that bill gray wrote what they're doing is they're handing someone a joke that they made you and I share this joke together and that's why you know that's why ho marks golden because we know we know how to do that for its first 90 years hallmark was how you said happy birthday Merry Christmas and sorry your cat died but then everything changed keycards came about in 1994 they were primitive at first happy 15 but they quickly grew in popularity they sang they dance the did things that paper cards just couldn't do and most importantly you didn't have to leave your chair to send them in the late-1990s hallmark began laying off hundreds of employees between 1999 and 2008 the company let go of more than a quarter of its workforce shrinking from 20,000 employees to 12,000 today since then hallmark has been playing catch-up trying everything from iPhone and iPad apps robotic toys that move and bark 3d printers and laser cutters hallmark is competing with new hybrid services like apples cards app which allows users to send physical cards straight from their iPads and iPhones over a year after the launch of Apple's cards hallmark launched its own similar app go-carts which was greeted with a lukewarm response in the App Store Hallmark's struggles aren't just with new technology that's what the way technology has changed culture a hundred years ago when hallmark was founded people couldn't express themselves through an email Facebook gifts or emoji and today young people are sending fewer greeting cards than ever before despite all that people still think there will always be a place for physical greeting cards maybe I'm too romantic about this but I think there will always be a need for some sort of tangible artifact that can be exchanged between two people a lot of people want to hold in your hand and look at it they don't want to buy it on the Internet they want to come in someplace and look at it buy it and take it all I just think that's never gonna go away you know you can get a little motor cons and our little faces and stuff smiley faces that you want to put on there but it doesn't take the place of somebody actually you know sometimes just like right now if it's hot and I write them that it might be a little sweat stand or whatever or if I'm feeling emotional you might see a couple of Tears fans on there but 80% of the times the kids are going to go for the instant right there I really don't even want to think about what I would be doing if I wasn't doing this when I came here I thought I would hang around here for a couple of years and it opened up the first day I was here I knew that this job was it and this is what I want to do they're gonna have to drag me out of here
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