How does the greeting card industry keep up with modern consumers’ sense of the occasions that call for a trip to the card aisle?
Not with yesterday’s shelf of (yawn!) canned sentiments and same-old hearts and flowers. The modern greeting card buyer is as likely to be looking for a way to say “Sorry your boyfriend is such an &**%^#@” as “Happy Birthday” – and when they want to say “Happy Birthday” they expect to be able to do it with a little something more.
Millennials, in particular, seem to have adopted the practice of buying cards for a whole range of occasions deemed “cardworthy,” George White, the Greeting Card Association’s vice president tells National Public Radio.
They’re not waiting around for someone’s birthday. And they’re spending as much a $10 on single cards with a lot of bling: lights, sounds, music, pop-ups and 3D images, NPR reports. Hearts and flowers are fine, as long as they don’t just sit there. Boooring.
Special Effects for Greeting Card Companies that Dare to Ditch the Ordinary
Special effects screen printing techniques provide an unlimited array of ways to make greeting cards that won’t get passed over. Multisensory effects, in fact, have a proven power of generating consumer engagement. When you add custom scents or textures or a hidden reveal, you create a card that demands to be touched, or sniffed, or opened. Anything but ignored. When you combine multisensory effects, you multiply the appeal. And the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. We can help with expert consulting around ways to focus the power of multisensory appeal for your target audience.
Here are just a few examples of what we can do with special effects:
- Create pleasant associations or provoke nostalgia with more than 100 stock or custom scents like coffee, root beer, suntan lotion, cotton candy, fresh bread, french fries, tacos, wine, new car or freshly-cut grass
- Provide a bit of aromatherapy with scents like peppermint, jasmine, sandalwood, sage or lavender – or go in a different direction with smells like sweat, gasoline, mildew or weed
- Use inks that react with light, heat, cold or water to create a hidden reveal or secret message
- Reproduce the luxurious texture of linen or silk, or the grain of a football or a tire tread
- Glam it up with customized glitter formulations that won’t flake, but feels like the real stuff
- Use pearlescent or metallic textures for heightened drama
Combine effects for even bigger impact. Don’t settle for putting a slice of birthday cake on a birthday card. Reproduce the texture of icing, make it smell like birthday cake, go all in on the sparkle. A pop-up bouquet that smells like fresh cut flowers is going to get picked.
Stand Out on the Greeting Card Shelf
In a competitive and crowded market for consumers’ attention, don’t just go for the eyeballs. Engage them with multiple senses and watch your business grow. Our combinations of eye-dazzling colors, luxurious textures, realistic scents, engaging scratch-off techniques and hidden messages can add the special touch that ignites engagement and appeals to the beating heart of the consumer on a cardworthy quest. What are you waiting for? National Celery Month is already here!
Let your imagination go – or rely on our expertise to help you sort through the possibilities.
At H&H Graphics, the only thing we don’t do is ordinary.
Give us a call or click on the link below to learn more about what we can do to help you create greeting cards that stand out.
