Hallmark Introduces Recordable Cards

Looking to follow up on the success of its greeting cards that play music and sound clips, Hallmark Cards is letting customers get into the act.

Hallmark introduced some of the cards at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony earlier this year and got several celebrities to make recordings, including Tom Hanks, Billy Joel, John Mellencamp and Chevy Chase. Gronberg said Hallmark is working with the military to send cards with some of these recordings to military personnel whose children weren't able to participate in this month's recording sessions.

The tunes for the eight designs available for Mother's Day range from the sentimental — Tanya Tucker's Here's Some Love and Phil Collins' You'll Be in My Heart— to the alternative motherly greeting of Tag Team's Whoomp! There It Is.

Once the senders are satisfied with the message, they tear out a paper insert to lock it into the sound chip's memory. As long as the insert remains in the card, the message will be erased when the card closes and can be rerecorded.

Andre du Broc, an editorial director for the line, said that feature prevents card store shoppers from leaving "inappropriate" messages on the cards before they're purchased.

The card's battery has enough power for 220 plays, he said, and the card can be rerecorded multiple times.

The Sound Cards line, which now includes several hundred designs and songs, has been a winner for Hallmark in the two years since it went on sale. While the privately held company doesn't break out sales figures for the cards separately, it said last month that they helped fuel an 8% rise in 2007 companywide revenue to $4.4 billion.

Combined with a 3% rise in card sales in 2006, the Sound Cards have turned around a card business that had remained flat for several years as e-mails and e-cards became more popular.

Hallmark's main competitor, American Greetings has sold its own line of sound and music cards for more than a year, said spokesman Frank Cirillo, adding that it also has been popular and expanded to several hundred cards. Besides sound, American Greetings also sells cards with blinking lights and animated images.

While American Greetings doesn't currently have a recordable card, Cirillo said the company is experimenting with that, as well as other ways to add value and interest.

"We're constantly looking at ways to advance the line," he said.

Both companies acknowledge there is a limit. Customers will pay only so much for a greeting card, regardless of the nifty bells and whistles.

Hallmark and American Greetings are searching for ways to keep their paper-and-ink products, which have existed for more than a century, relevant in a modern world where e-mail, cellphones and streaming video keep people connected over long distances. Hallmark is betting a recordable card does that.

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Contact the Hallmark regional sales representative for local participation in the debut and Mother's Day ad materials.