Hallmark's New Loyalty Business November 10, 2008 Hallmark's new division offers gift cards and employee recognition awards.
By Alexandra Haake
Hallmark Tributes is the newest endeavor carried out by the company known for its creative greeting and gift cards. Unlike Hallmark Insights, the gift card program supplier, Hallmark Tributes is not a subsidiary of the Hallmark company but a new division entirely.
The new business will offer Hallmark gift cards and a variety of employee-recognition-themed gift card holders, as well as other recognition products, like framed award certificates, for employers looking to connect with their employees. It targets Fortune 1000 companies and distributors selling to them.
General Manager of Hallmark Tributes Colleen Finch says the new division continues with Hallmark's vision of connecting people, just in a different direction. "We wanted to branch out into the business world where we could help employers connect in the relationships in their business lives—with their employees, with their vendors, with their clients, in a fun and unique way, whether it's thanking them, rewarding them, or even just giving them a holiday gift."
"We have two components to our business," Finch says. The first is the product; "the other part is that we sell Hallmark gift cards, which are redeemable at Hallmark Gold Crown stores. And that part of our business we sell directly to corporations to use our gift cards in their incentive program."
Hallmark and Hallmark Tributes have further personalized their product lines by moving their product development toward licensing songs to use in personalized cards. Queen's "We Will Rock You" and Bachman Turner Overdrive's "Taking Care of Business" are two of the ways employers can add a humorous and meaningful touch to recognition.
"Sound is a way to entice the senses. We are doing lots of things with motion but the sound portion of it has been incredibly appealing, and sound cards have been incredibly successful," says Finch. "The actual interaction and experience is more of an amplified one with sound." The company released recordable chips last spring, where a customer can record their own message. "We have a frame where you can record a personal message, so if it's a manager that's rewarding an employee, they can record a thank-you message on the frame that is very personal. Sound is just giving it a better experience."
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