Can’t Find the Words? Now There’s No Excuse
Know someone who’s dying? There’s a greeting card for him. How about someone taking care of someone who’s dying? There’s one for her too.
Did your friend have a miscarriage? You say you’ve divorced your husband but want to drop a note to his parents? Your dad divorced and remarried and you’ve got to send a card to the wife?
No problem, no problem, no problem. Chances are at least one of the approximate 1,000 greeting card publishers in this country has designed a card that will fill your bill while it reduces your wallet by, on average, $1.50. As Americans become increasingly comfortable discussing heretofore unmentionables, card makers are cashing in on what once was the province of the psychiatrist’s couch, including job loss, relationship failure, homosexuality, drug and alcohol recovery, infertility, as well as death, divorce and remarriage.
Small alternative card companies often see these needs first, to be followed cautiously by the three giants controlling 85% of the market: Hallmark, American Greetings and Gibson.
The industry’s Greeting Card Assn. reports that while sales of many traditional categories of cards are flat, these “non-occasion” cards are on the rise. Why do Americans want to send cards at times besides Christmas, Valentine’s and birthdays?
“People have all sorts of needs that no one bothered to talk about before,” says Victor Gellineau, president of Carole Joy Creations Inc., a 10-year-old line of cards for African Americans based in Danbury, Conn.
“If I had a penny every time someone said ‘Relax, take a vacation,’ I’d be a millionaire,” says Katie Gerke, a 38-year-old Alexandria, Va., woman who has been trying for nine years to get pregnant. Gerke got so fed up with people avoiding her, or calling and saying they didn’t know what to say, that she started Katie’s Kards, 30 different expressions of sympathy and support for women and men who are trying unsuccessfully to have a child.
Some customers seek out wordy expressions of support, and for them companies like Carlton Cards, a division of American Greetings, manufacture lines such as “Reflections: Inspiring Thoughts by Emily Matthews.” Emily, whoever she is (“I don’t have a clue,” says Wilmington sales rep Stephen Farrell) is a long-winded counselor; her card “Life’s Pathway,” for example, is a 22-line ode of encouragement. Women, who buy about 85% of all cards according to the card association, like Reflections, Farrell says.
Men, however, want to keep it brief. When they find a card they like, they buy several, according to Ken Rosenthal, a manufacturers’ representative of independent card companies.
With about half of all marriages ending in divorce, it’s hardly surprising that you can find cards for stepparents, stepchildren and anniversary cards “for Dad and his wife.” SBB Ink, a business in West Windsor, N.J., now offers Blended Family greeting cards such as this one: “Happy Birthday Stepmother (sounds too mean), Dad’s wife (sounds too cold), Blended Mom (that’s perfect!).”
“Blended Families greeting cards,” the press blurb touts, “are for those relationships: step-mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents . . . ; former (“ex”) spouses, in-laws; remarriage . . . and everyone who cares about those affected by divorce, remarriage, custody and visitation issues.”
Anyone feel left out?
