Since its beginnings in 1910, Hallmark has succeeded in becoming the largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. In 1966, this private business, humbly headquartered in Kansas City, made the crossed the pond to international markets, and today has a retail network in over 100 countries, publishing greeting cards in over 30 languages. Hallmark is now making another jump, this time into becoming a technological superstar.
Project WOW, the latest Hallmark initiative, was designed with the goal of wowing customers. The newly-employed technologies allow card purchasers to embed a personal message or sound clip into a deliverable card. This capability is the result of years of hard work by the design, IT and "Advancing Technologies" teams as they collaborated and produced a method to provide Hallmark cards that include, built-in, a computer chip, a battery and a miniature speaker.
Anybody can make a card—a paper and pencil are all that is required—but not everybody can make a card that is different and yet still effective. Hallmark has accomplished this with their audio cards. They were allowed a competitive advantage through their utilization of technology and their trust in their IT teams. As technology becomes even more ubiquitous, I hope that other companies look to this Hallmark innovation and look for competitive advantages within their own information technology groups.
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2 comments:
Hallmark has always been known for the best greeting cards, and they have kept their good name by staying ahead of their competitors. Tying greeting cards together with technology is something that has never been done before, and so far has shown popular interest. Technology seems to be the only way companies stay ahead these days. There is little doubt that any problems will arise from this simple and harmless idea. I have seen cards with sound chips that play excerpts from songs before, but I am interested to know how buyers can record their own message? With their own voice? Is this done online or at the Hallmark store? How much more expensive is it than the traditional greeting cards?
I agree with the previous comment posted about Hallmark's new project. The idea of being able to record your own voice and personalized message to the receiver is innovative and exciting. Hallmark is a very trusted corporation and this idea, as stated above, is relatively harmless. This idea will keep Hallmark ahead of other card companies and bring them further into a world consumed by technology. I am definitely curious as to how this card will work. It will be interesting to see the level of response a card like this receives, especially around the holidays.
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