KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Hallmark Cards Inc., a $4 billion empire built on a demand for printed sentimentality, enters its second century facing a weak economy and what could be an even greater challenge: a generation that has grown up posting its sentiments online.
Hallmark has thrived since Joyce Clyde Hall peddled postcards in Kansas City 100 years ago, rising to become the nation's largest greeting-card company with more than $2.5 billion in annual revenue from cards, gift wrap, partyware and more.
"They're the biggest. They're the giant," said Emily West, a communications professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst who has studied Hallmark and how greeting cards are used. "They're like the Kleenex of greeting cards ... like the Hoover of sentiment."
Nevertheless, Hallmark, a privately held company that releases limited information about its finances, has endured two straight years of falling revenues. Its consolidated revenue of $4 billion in 2009 was 8 percent lower than income the year before. In 2008, Hallmark revenues were off 2 percent from the previous year.
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In 2009, Hallmark - a company with a reputation of holding onto employees for decades - dropped 8 percent of its work force, which now stands at about 13,400 worldwide.
Don J. Hall Jr., grandson of Hallmark's founder and the third generation of Halls to lead the company, isn't alarmed about the possible fallout from the sluggish economy - something he notes "every consumer-based, retail-based company" has had to deal with.
Hall also waves off concerns about electronic media being the death of the greeting card.
"There were people telling my grandfather all the time that the telephone will lead to the demise of greeting cards," Hall said. "Then during my father's years, it was the fax machine. If you can send a fax ... same thing.
"Then it happened a decade ago with e-cards, and they said e-cards will replace greeting cards."
Hallmark, he said, always saw its way through.
West, of the University of Massachusetts, said that while social-networking sites could be eroding card usage, it has yet to be determined how young people will "age into card sending."
The constancy of electronic communication could actually spur what West sees as a "new romance with tangible media."
"Even if you don't like the card that much, you know the person left their house, went to the store and had to select the card and mail it," she said. "Now that seems like a lot of work."
