When we found out greeting card titan American Greetings was exhibiting at CES we thought it was an odd match. After all, what kind of electronic innovation could this company have to show off? Its entire business is good old fashioned paper correspondence.
No innovation at all, as it turns out. American Greetings came to the world’s biggest tech expo to make the case for traditional paper cards.
In a big booth just outside the Las Vegas Convention Center, American Greetings reps invited attendees to get their analog on, writing out sweet sentiments that the company would mail on their behalf. Designers were also there to make custom cards based on input from the visitors.
In the weeks leading up to CES, American Greetings’ PR team sent out vague and intriguing messages teasing “a device like no other” that they planned to demo.
“When you’re someone who takes a step back to send someone an actual physical greeting card, that’s a much more meaningful connection than rapid-fire texts, so we decided to come here and have the thinnest, most powerful communication device, which is the greeting card,” said an American Greetings PR rep at the event.
The marketing ploy was so shamelessly gimmicky that I almost respect it. After all, it got me to the American Greetings booth.
