Hallmark's 'Pet Love' Cards
Does your dog want to give his human dad a Father’s Day card? Long to send her human mom a Valentine? How about a birthday card from the dog to the kids in the family? This once may have sounded, well, silly, but thanks to Hallmark and its Pet Love Greetings line, pet owners can come out of the closet about their card-giving habits.
And it’s a pretty big closet: Hallmark cites research showing that 62% of pet owners sign cards and letter from both themselves and their pet. 79% give their pets holiday or birthday presents, and 55% view themselves as their pet’s parent - not owner - parent. How big is this universe of pet crazy people? Six in 10 American households include a pet. Three in 10 include a child. Do the math...
Hallmark’s Susan Morgenthaler says of the statistics, "with that kind of depth underlying the people-pet bond, there’s an obvious consumer need to celebrate the joys and share the inevitable sorrows that come with important relationships. It’s a need Hallmark is better prepared to meet than anyone else." She continues, "The Pet Love Greetings line is one of the most visible ways Hallmark helps consumers express their fondness for four-legged friends."
Hallmark Employees Saw the Need for Cards-from-your-Pet
Hallmark recognized this bond in 1984 when it launched its first pet sympathy cards. The Pet Love line was first introduced in 1991 when pet-loving Hallmark employees felt there was a need for a broader range of pet related cards. Sensing a trend, Hallmark conducted extensive research with consumers, retailers, veterinarians, and even pet psychologists to determine the benefits that pets bring to their people. Their studies confirmed what pet owners have long known - pets fill the human need for unconditional love, they are therapeutic, people enjoy giving love and care to a pet.
The launch of Pet Love Greetings proved so successful that Hallmark expanded to line to include specialty items: gift bags, notepads, computer mousepads, and even adoption certificates were added, and the line was made available wherever Hallmark cards are sold.
The cards and accessories reflect a deep personal interest in pets among Hallmark people - every Hallmark artist and writer who has worked on the Pet Love Greetings has what they describe as a "personal passion for pets."
It is this point of view that produces cards like "To My Dad:You better have a happy birthday or I’ll pee behind the sofa" or the message inside a card that features a dog with his paw resting on a toilet seat "Another Birthday" I’ll drink to that!" Or one of our favorites, "Thanks! That was really nice, coming from someone who had me neutered."
A Card For Every Occasion
The Pet Love Greetings line includes cards for seasonal holidays like Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, as well as birthdays. Next month, we’ll talk with one of the Hallmark artists about personal involvement in creating cards for other pet owners to share.
Hallmark Cards has a hit with its Pet Love Greetings line - finally, there is a card designed just for your dog to give to you, or you to give to another pet owner, or your dog’s vet, or maybe a gift bag with puppies on it, or a mousepad with a portrait of your favorite breed...well, you get the idea.
Who are the people behind this line and how do they know what pet lovers are looking for? Not surprisingly, they’re pet owners too. Hallmark’s creative team is filled with people who have pets, who volunteer at shelters, run rescue organizations and surround themselves with animals, so every single item in the Pet love line is created by people who really, truly love pets.
How Do they Do It?
How does all this love translate into the cards and products you find at the store? We asked Susan Morgenthaler, the manager of the Pet Love line (and ‘mom’ to Lilabelle, a 9 year old Border Collie-Australian Shepherd mix), to describe the process. It starts with the consumer - what types of messages and products are pet owners looking for? What occasions and events are appropriate for pet-related cards? What cultural trends might influence the way people interact with their pets? The answers to these questions determine the general direction and needs for additions to the line, and then the brainstorming begins.
Artists, writers and team leaders throw out suggestions, ideas and concepts - all from the point of view of the love people have for their pets, and with the understanding that everything they create expresses this love and emotional bond. Inspiration for a specific card might come from a photo, or a cat-owning writer might jot down a thought while at home with her cats - since these are all pet owners themselves, they know the personalities and traits of pets and can express them in a way that appeals to other pet owners.
There are other practical considerations affecting the line. Dogs and cats are the pets featured, because of their overwhelming popularity and general appeal (so don’t expect to see ferrets or pot-bellied pigs anytime soon). For breed-specific products like notepads, statistics on breed popularity from the AKC are used to determine which breeds will be selected. As the line grows, smaller-in-number breeds are added.
Brainstorming the Perfect Card: Going for the 'Ahhhhh'
For the cards, images are a mix of photos and illustrations. We asked Deb McLaren, the designer responsible for the overall look of the Pet Love line (‘mom’ to Maggie, a Border Collie, and a horse) to describe how the art is selected. In the brainstorming session the creative team looks at photos, discusses what images might be appropriate for messages the writers have come up with, and think about the balance of the line: it includes sentiments that range from ‘cute’ to ‘irreverent’ and appealing to the broad range of human emotions and situations is a key factor in deciding what gets developed.
What makes the cut? Anything that has the ‘ahhhhh’ factor is in (that’s the sound the creative team makes when they see an image or hear a poem). Other items are determined by seasonal need or to fill a particular situation or event. Once the team has their assignments, they’re off to work.
Working on the Pet Love Line
If you work on Hallmark’s ‘Pet Love’ line of cards and products, it’s a pretty good bet you’re a pet owner. So that makes the basics of the job easy, but how do you take your ideas and make them appealing to thousands of Hallmark customers?
Carolyn Hoppe, card writer and proud mom of rescue cats, says that the idea is to get a bead on pet traits and personalities that appeal to people, play up the habits of the animal, then have it converge with the habits of humans - that makes a card both relevant and appealing. Like the card that features a photo of a dog with his paw on the open toilet seat, and the caption “Another Birthday? I’ll drink to that!”
Carolyn writes for the person who will be sending the card and draws on personal experience to craft a sentiment that will be meaningful to both card giver and recipient. She sees her role as spokesperson, creating a bridge from one person to another and helping card givers express their sentiments. She’s not alone at Hallmark - personal focus is brought to card creation, so that someone who rescues animals writes and draws the pet adoption cards -and who else but someone like that would even know that pet adoption cards could be both appropriate and popular?
Cute Models
Where do they find those models - that Golden Retriever puppy certainly came form central casting, didn’t she? It’s just as likely that the animal models are pets of Hallmark staff, although talent agencies and breed experts are also called upon to cast just the right ‘face’. Photographs are used when appropriate for the sentiment, and Hallmark’s in-house staff create the pictures. Sometimes, illustrations are better for communicating a message, and here too, one of the 700 members of Hallmark’s creative team draw or paint the right image.
The artists have assignments (such as a sketch of a dog for a sympathy card) but the pose, style of drawing, and artistic medium - paint, charcoal, watercolor, even stitchery - is left to the artist, assuring the highest level of artistic integrity. And as with everything in the Pet Love line, each drawing and painting is created with a personal love and understanding of animals and their place in humans lives.
Not Just for Fun: It's a Popular Line
But wait, Hallmark is a business - how do they manage to design cards that people really want to buy? The team of editors and line managers keep in touch with want we consumers want in a variety of ways: market research is valuable in showing trends, focus groups, which include local pet owners, help Hallmark keep their messages relevant to card buyers. Experience helps too - that’s how Hallmark knows that products with pictures of puppies and kittens outsell those featuring adult animals, and that dogs edge out cats 60-40 in merchandise sales.
The Pet Love line doesn’t just speak to American card buyers - the line is popular in Canada, Britain and Belgium, (where cards are passed by local groups for the appropriate-ness of the translations).
Hallmark has scored big with Pet Love, and the biggest reason has to be the overwhelming feeling we got from the people we interviewed: the bond between humans and animals is so strong, and their personal attachments to their pets so deep, that the Pet Love line is simply an extension of their love for their pets. Now that’s a job.
