26-27_Layout 1 30/06/2017 13:19 Page 27
CARDSHARP
And it is good to reflect and enjoy just how deeply engrained card sending is in the UK. The results of a recent major research project conducted by OC and C, commissioned by Card Factory, predicted that the UK greeting card market is on course to grow by 1.2% a year by value until 2019 at least. Not bad for an industry that many male ‘experts’ predicted 15 years ago would not exist by 2015. In fact, quite the opposite is happening. Additional research findings from OC and C showed the opposite. Back in 2012 some 25% of consumers said that they would send a digital message in place of a card. But by 2016, the figure for digital substation had dropped to 18%. If these forecasts prove correct, by 2020 we could be heading towards being a £2 billion industry. And talking of Card Factory, a report by the consumer champions, Which? of 10,000 consumers, voted it the ninth most pleasurable chain to visit in terms of customer experience. And its sales rose to a fraction under £400 million. All of this is great, but we should never forget the primary reason for us to be
cheerful is that we work in an industry that allows everybody to express their positive feelings to other individuals. We are, in effect, muses Cardsharp, without wishing to be too sentimental, a ‘paper hug’, which surely given all the bad things going on in the world is a whole lot better than being a ‘digital troll!’ It is no coincidence, reflects Cardsharp, that our industry has a unique reputation for inclusiveness and friendliness. Surely part of this is the nature of the product we are all involved in? It was great to see this all come together, as publishers, retailers and
suppliers alike were keen to vote in the GCA Tagline ‘election’ at PG Live, with the phrase ‘Send a card, deliver a smile’ achieving a landslide victory - not something any political party was able to claim later that day when the results of the General Election were announced! Now, Cardsharp has not been living in some Panglossian fantasy world for the last month, but perhaps sometimes we just need to reflect about the many positive things that make our industry so great. So altogether now, concludes Cardsharp, “Hit me with your Rhythm Stick!” Mind you, the greeting card industry is certainly not “Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll”, well certainly not in Cardsharp’s circle.
Above: The fall in the value of the £pound has attracted greeting card export. Right: A report by Which? voted Card Factory the ninth most pleasurable multiple to shop in. Below: Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now.
All aboard on platform two Now on not such an upbeat subject. Cardsharp’s diatribe last month on us all sleepwalking into a future world where all that exists, and everything we do, is controlled by the three digital giants, Facebook, Amazon and Google, and in which there are no physical shops or indeed greeting cards, certainly generated a lot of comment. Their avoidance of tax, their use of their unlimited finance to create monopolies, their blatant plagiarism and their lack of taking any responsibility for their actions, were all things that in the main most people agreed with. But this was also countered with a comment like, “Yes I know but I can’t live without them because they make life so much easier”. In Cardsharp’s view, one of the most interesting but most disingenuous defences is the one that both Google and Facebook throw up when criticised for publishing the most vile and dangerous material online or blatantly publishing someone else’s intellectual content, is it is not their responsibility to monitor content, they are just a ‘platform’. Well you could say the same about greeting cards. We are just a paper ‘platform’ as opposed to a digital one. Can you imagine though the outrage if greeting cards started appearing containing the most vile, extreme, pornographic, hate-inducing material. Or if publishers just started shamelessly reprinting other publishers’ cards without even bothering to change them. And what about the card shops selling them? Surely they are just ‘platforms’ and so would be absolved of any legal and moral responsibility as well. Cardsharp knows this is a ridiculous scenario, but so is the current situation regarding the lack of responsibility the digital monoliths take for their actions. To quote the title of Joseph Conrad’s great novel, on which the great Vietnam war film Apocalypse Now is based: ‘Within some of these organisation lies a ‘Heart of Darkness’.
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
27