Hallmark Cards is a privately owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce C. Hall, Hallmark is the largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. In 1985, the company was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
As the #1 producer of warm fuzzies, Hallmark Cards is the Goliath of greeting cards. The company's cards are sold under brand names such as Hallmark, Shoebox, and Ambassador and can be found in more than 40,000 US retail stores. (About 3,200 stores bear the Hallmark Gold Crown name; the majority of these stores are independently owned.) Hallmark also offers electronic greeting cards, gifts, and flowers through its website. In addition to greeting cards, the company owns crayon manufacturer Crayola (formerly Binney & Smith), more than 90% of cable broadcaster Crown Media, and Kansas City's Crown Center real estate development firm. Members of the founding Hall family own two-thirds of Hallmark.
For more than 100 years, Hallmark Cards, Inc. has helped people connect with one another and give voice to their feelings. Our employees are personally passionate about caring, creativity, quality and innovation, values that have guided us from the start and remain at our core.
We're best known for greeting cards, but we're much more than that. Our products include paper party supplies, gifts and wrapping paper… ornaments and decorative items for the home… memory-keeping picture frames, albums and scrapbooks… e-cards and personalized photo cards... even a cable television channel. We're with you at holidays and any-days, at your most important milestones and unexpected occasions, when you want to share a laugh and when you seek to offer comfort.
We're privately held, and committed to remaining so. We're family-owned with third-generation family leadership taking us into the 21st century.
Hallmark Gold Crown stores are in neighborhoods across the country.
We've grown from two shoeboxes of postcards into a $4.1 billion company. Our products can be found in 100 countries around the world and in more than 40,000 stores in the United States alone. Our flagship retail partners are more than 3,000 Hallmark Gold Crown® stores that offer the widest selection of our products in communities across the U.S. Most of them are independently owned by local entrepreneurs who care about their communities as much as we care about ours.
Our roots extend deep in Kansas City, Mo., our corporate headquarters. We have manufacturing and distribution facilities in Missouri, Kansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Texas and Illinois and are active in helping build healthy communities in the cities and towns where our employees live and work. Our subsidiaries, like Crayola and William Arthur, in addition to several greeting card companies, are our partners in good corporate citizenship.
Creativity, innovation, quality and caring have guided our decisions and earned us the trust of people who work with us, buy our products and live in the communities we call home. It's a trust we intend to keep.
consider.
One strategy was to diversify away from greeting cards even further. In 1990 Hallmark acquired Willitts Designs, a maker of collectibles, but then sold the company only three years later. Likewise, Hallmark's venture into Spanish-language television was abandoned in 1992 at a loss of $10 million when Univision was sold to Grupo Televisa. Cable television was Hallmark's next foray with the 1991 formation of a Crown Media Inc. subsidiary to which was added Cenom Cable in St. Louis, through the purchase of a controlling interest for $1 billion. In 1994 this venture too was cast aside when Hallmark sold Crown Media to Charter Communications Inc. for $900 million.
During this period Hallmark also updated its product line, offering a more high tech approach to card purchasing. In 1991 the "Personalize it!" in-store kiosk was introduced (later called Touch-Screen Greetings), through which customers were able to create computer-generated personalized greeting cards. The following year Hallmark filed suit for infringement of its kiosk patent against American Greetings and its Creata-Card kiosk. The suit was settled in 1995 with each company receiving a worldwide, nonexclusive license to use the technology; no other details on the settlement were provided at that time.
Moreover, in 1994, Hallmark developed recordable greeting cards in partnership with Information Storage Devices. Initially retailing for $7.95 each, these cards allowed the sender to record his personal message, which would then play back each time the card was opened. The following year, Hallmark moved into the burgeoning area of online marketing by offering its greeting cards on America Online. The company planned additional such ventures for other online services.
In the face of declining profits brought on by the declining market share, Hallmark went through a series of reengineering and restructuring efforts in the early 1990s in an attempt to hold costs down. United States and Canadian operations were consolidated and a 1995 restructuring brought together for each Hallmark card brand its administrative, marketing, and product-development function.
Additional diversification moves were taken in the mid-1990s in the field of entertainment. In 1994 Hallmark acquired RHI Entertainment Inc. for $365 million. RHI was the television production company responsible for Hallmark's Hall of Fame productions. Hallmark thus acquired the world's leading producer of family-oriented entertainment, which it promptly renamed Hallmark Entertainment, Inc. and set up as a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards. Then in 1995, Hallmark purchased a 9.9 percent stake in European broadcaster Flextech for $80 million. Flextech and Hallmark will create a family-oriented cable television network, the Hallmark Entertainment Network, which was slated to commence operations in Ireland and the United Kingdom in 1996.
Given the uneven success of Hallmark's noncore ventures, greeting cards remained the company's most important endeavor. New promotions of Hallmark cards in the mid-1990s included a "sneak-a-peek" advertising campaign, comprising a series of commercials in which someone is caught looking at the back of the card he was just given, just to make sure it was a Hallmark. The company also announced plans to introduce a new brand name in 1997, Expressions by Hallmark. Heading into the 21st century, Hallmark was a market leader at a crossroads. According to some analysts, the company's decisions regarding its distribution options would likely go a long way toward determining future success.
Principal Subsidiaries: Binney & Smith Inc.; Crown Center Redevelopment Corporation; Graphics International Inc.; Hallmark Entertainment, Inc.; Hallmark International; Halls Merchandising, Inc.; Litho-Krome Co.; Hallmark Cards Australia Ltd.; Binney & Smith (Canada) Ltd.; Hallmark Canada; Hallmark Cards Inc.-French Branch; Hallmark Cards GmbH (Germany); Hallmark Cards Ireland Ltd.; Hallmark de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.; Spanjersburg (Netherlands); Verkerke Reprodukties, N.V. (Netherlands); Hallmark Cards NZ Ltd. (New Zealand); Hallmark Cards Iberica, S.A. (Spain); Hallmark Cards Ltd., European Div. (U.K.); W. N. Sharpe Ltd. (U.K.); Valentines of Dundee, Ltd (U.K.).
Financial Highlights
Fiscal Year End: December
Revenue (2009): 4000.00 M
Revenue Growth (1 yr): (-7.00%)
Employees (2009): 13,400
Employee Growth (1 yr): (-13.50%)
Statistics:
Private Company
Incorporated: 1923 as Hall Brothers Company
Employees: 19,600
Sales: $3.4 billion (1995 est.)
SICs: 2678 Stationery, Tablets & Related Products; 2679 Converted Paper & Paperboard Products, Not Elsewhere Classified; 2771 Greeting Card Publishing & Printing; 3952 Lead Pencils, Crayons & Artists' Materials; 3999 Manufacturing Industries, Not Elsewhere Classified
Key People
• Chairman: Donald J. Hall
• Vice Chairman, President, and CEO: Donald J. (Don) Hall Jr.
• VP Business Development: Vince G.
Address:
2501 McGee Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64108
U.S.A.
As the #1 producer of warm fuzzies, Hallmark Cards is the Goliath of greeting cards. The company's cards are sold under brand names such as Hallmark, Shoebox, and Ambassador and can be found in more than 40,000 US retail stores. (About 3,200 stores bear the Hallmark Gold Crown name; the majority of these stores are independently owned.) Hallmark also offers electronic greeting cards, gifts, and flowers through its website. In addition to greeting cards, the company owns crayon manufacturer Crayola (formerly Binney & Smith), more than 90% of cable broadcaster Crown Media, and Kansas City's Crown Center real estate development firm. Members of the founding Hall family own two-thirds of Hallmark.
For more than 100 years, Hallmark Cards, Inc. has helped people connect with one another and give voice to their feelings. Our employees are personally passionate about caring, creativity, quality and innovation, values that have guided us from the start and remain at our core.
We're best known for greeting cards, but we're much more than that. Our products include paper party supplies, gifts and wrapping paper… ornaments and decorative items for the home… memory-keeping picture frames, albums and scrapbooks… e-cards and personalized photo cards... even a cable television channel. We're with you at holidays and any-days, at your most important milestones and unexpected occasions, when you want to share a laugh and when you seek to offer comfort.
We're privately held, and committed to remaining so. We're family-owned with third-generation family leadership taking us into the 21st century.
Hallmark Gold Crown stores are in neighborhoods across the country.
We've grown from two shoeboxes of postcards into a $4.1 billion company. Our products can be found in 100 countries around the world and in more than 40,000 stores in the United States alone. Our flagship retail partners are more than 3,000 Hallmark Gold Crown® stores that offer the widest selection of our products in communities across the U.S. Most of them are independently owned by local entrepreneurs who care about their communities as much as we care about ours.
Our roots extend deep in Kansas City, Mo., our corporate headquarters. We have manufacturing and distribution facilities in Missouri, Kansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Texas and Illinois and are active in helping build healthy communities in the cities and towns where our employees live and work. Our subsidiaries, like Crayola and William Arthur, in addition to several greeting card companies, are our partners in good corporate citizenship.
Creativity, innovation, quality and caring have guided our decisions and earned us the trust of people who work with us, buy our products and live in the communities we call home. It's a trust we intend to keep.
consider.
One strategy was to diversify away from greeting cards even further. In 1990 Hallmark acquired Willitts Designs, a maker of collectibles, but then sold the company only three years later. Likewise, Hallmark's venture into Spanish-language television was abandoned in 1992 at a loss of $10 million when Univision was sold to Grupo Televisa. Cable television was Hallmark's next foray with the 1991 formation of a Crown Media Inc. subsidiary to which was added Cenom Cable in St. Louis, through the purchase of a controlling interest for $1 billion. In 1994 this venture too was cast aside when Hallmark sold Crown Media to Charter Communications Inc. for $900 million.
During this period Hallmark also updated its product line, offering a more high tech approach to card purchasing. In 1991 the "Personalize it!" in-store kiosk was introduced (later called Touch-Screen Greetings), through which customers were able to create computer-generated personalized greeting cards. The following year Hallmark filed suit for infringement of its kiosk patent against American Greetings and its Creata-Card kiosk. The suit was settled in 1995 with each company receiving a worldwide, nonexclusive license to use the technology; no other details on the settlement were provided at that time.
Moreover, in 1994, Hallmark developed recordable greeting cards in partnership with Information Storage Devices. Initially retailing for $7.95 each, these cards allowed the sender to record his personal message, which would then play back each time the card was opened. The following year, Hallmark moved into the burgeoning area of online marketing by offering its greeting cards on America Online. The company planned additional such ventures for other online services.
In the face of declining profits brought on by the declining market share, Hallmark went through a series of reengineering and restructuring efforts in the early 1990s in an attempt to hold costs down. United States and Canadian operations were consolidated and a 1995 restructuring brought together for each Hallmark card brand its administrative, marketing, and product-development function.
Additional diversification moves were taken in the mid-1990s in the field of entertainment. In 1994 Hallmark acquired RHI Entertainment Inc. for $365 million. RHI was the television production company responsible for Hallmark's Hall of Fame productions. Hallmark thus acquired the world's leading producer of family-oriented entertainment, which it promptly renamed Hallmark Entertainment, Inc. and set up as a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards. Then in 1995, Hallmark purchased a 9.9 percent stake in European broadcaster Flextech for $80 million. Flextech and Hallmark will create a family-oriented cable television network, the Hallmark Entertainment Network, which was slated to commence operations in Ireland and the United Kingdom in 1996.
Given the uneven success of Hallmark's noncore ventures, greeting cards remained the company's most important endeavor. New promotions of Hallmark cards in the mid-1990s included a "sneak-a-peek" advertising campaign, comprising a series of commercials in which someone is caught looking at the back of the card he was just given, just to make sure it was a Hallmark. The company also announced plans to introduce a new brand name in 1997, Expressions by Hallmark. Heading into the 21st century, Hallmark was a market leader at a crossroads. According to some analysts, the company's decisions regarding its distribution options would likely go a long way toward determining future success.
Principal Subsidiaries: Binney & Smith Inc.; Crown Center Redevelopment Corporation; Graphics International Inc.; Hallmark Entertainment, Inc.; Hallmark International; Halls Merchandising, Inc.; Litho-Krome Co.; Hallmark Cards Australia Ltd.; Binney & Smith (Canada) Ltd.; Hallmark Canada; Hallmark Cards Inc.-French Branch; Hallmark Cards GmbH (Germany); Hallmark Cards Ireland Ltd.; Hallmark de Mexico, S.A. de C.V.; Spanjersburg (Netherlands); Verkerke Reprodukties, N.V. (Netherlands); Hallmark Cards NZ Ltd. (New Zealand); Hallmark Cards Iberica, S.A. (Spain); Hallmark Cards Ltd., European Div. (U.K.); W. N. Sharpe Ltd. (U.K.); Valentines of Dundee, Ltd (U.K.).
Financial Highlights
Fiscal Year End: December
Revenue (2009): 4000.00 M
Revenue Growth (1 yr): (-7.00%)
Employees (2009): 13,400
Employee Growth (1 yr): (-13.50%)
Statistics:
Private Company
Incorporated: 1923 as Hall Brothers Company
Employees: 19,600
Sales: $3.4 billion (1995 est.)
SICs: 2678 Stationery, Tablets & Related Products; 2679 Converted Paper & Paperboard Products, Not Elsewhere Classified; 2771 Greeting Card Publishing & Printing; 3952 Lead Pencils, Crayons & Artists' Materials; 3999 Manufacturing Industries, Not Elsewhere Classified
Key People
• Chairman: Donald J. Hall
• Vice Chairman, President, and CEO: Donald J. (Don) Hall Jr.
• VP Business Development: Vince G.
Address:
2501 McGee Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64108
U.S.A.