As I wrote this on Christmas Day, I couldn’t help but think about how technological advances particularly in communication have changed many of us, socially. I went simply by the number of Christmas greetings I had received these past few days: no greetings via telephone call or via e-mail; and, only one Christmas card via regular post/mail.
Greetings came mostly by mobile phone messaging or through social media. But nothing by voice, all by text, and definitely nothing written by hand and signed. We have become impersonal, it seems, choosing convenience and expediency over “personal touch.” We choose to “post” a greeting to everyone in general, shotgun-style.
I admit that I am just as guilty as everyone else. I haven’t sent out a Christmas card — or any greeting card, for that matter — in years. Neither can I recall the last time I wrote a letter to someone. And while I have made the occasional telephone call to say hello or to greet someone on their birthday, I haven’t done so yet for this Christmas.
How times have changed. About 30 years ago, for three Christmas seasons, I sold Christmas cards for UNICEF. It was considered volunteer work, actually. But, for every card sold, UNICEF Greeting Cards Operations gave a small commission. At the time, it was not a bad way to have coins jiggling in your pocket during the holidays.
I found myself becoming a newspaper reporter after the third Christmas season, and the rest — as they say — is history. The call of journalism ended that selling career, and I have been a newspaperman for almost 27 years now. And while I have begun to think that technological changes are about to make greetings cards — and perhaps newspapers — a thing of the past, I am pleasantly surprised that there still seems to be some hope for both.
Not too long ago, I chanced upon an online report by National Public Radio or NPR, a Washington-based non-profit media organization. The report quoted the US National Retail Federation as saying that revenues from US greeting cards sales were steadying, and that “the greeting card industry could bring in as much as $933 million this Valentine’s Day [2019], up a bit from last year’s estimated $894 million.”
“While e-mail, texts and social media companies from Facebook to Snapchat have made it easier than ever to send instant greetings, more people — especially younger people — are sending greeting cards,” the report noted. “Greeting card experts say it’s younger people and millennials, in particular, who have been keeping the industry afloat. And they’re buying fancier specialty cards, often with personal touches,” it added.
Unlike before, fewer cards are sold nowadays, but at higher prices, thus helping the industry remain profitable. Personalization and customization helped card makers charge a premium for what used to be ordinary cards sold in high volume and low margins. Numerous but smaller players have also emerged, changing the face of the industry.
NPR reported: “More young people are starting their own companies that make new kinds of cards that feature pop-up 3D images, hand-painted artwork, LED lights, sounds and even animated cartoons that can be accessed with a mobile phone.” Their goal was to “create a more personalized experience and make cards that are more relatable to younger people.”
The NPR report added, “[New] cards are more expensive. And so, millennials are buying fewer greeting cards as a whole compared with other generations. Basically, they’re not buying boxes of cards to send to 50 friends around the holidays. Instead, they’re spending more on each fancier, higher-quality card.”
Just as technological advances and social media have almost made greetings cards a thing of the past, the same advances are now apparently helping revive what I thought was already a dying industry. Electronics have helped the planet save on paper and trees. And while paper-based industries appear to have become less profitable, it seems there are still opportunities out there.
Perhaps there are lessons to be learned here, particularly for other paper-based industries. A large proportion of people used to get their news and information from newspapers and books. But more people now turn to electronic media. Television still has a big following, so does radio. But younger people now choose to get their information online, including news. Gone are the days of households owning volumes of encyclopedia, or students going to libraries to research.
Electronically disseminating information and personal communication is for the long haul. Things are unlikely to go back to the way they were, unless there is a catastrophic event that negatively and significantly impacts either power-generation or telecommunication — or both. Without power or bandwidth, electronic communication will be difficult if not impossible.
Not that I want humanity to go back to writing letters or making phone calls, or sending greeting cards. How I wish we can do that, if only to bring back the personal touch in more important social communication. But, obviously, we are beyond that point. However, the changes in the way we communicate with each other has also impacted on people’s communication skills. And this, to me, is the more worrying part in this situation.
But the experience of the greetings cards industry is giving me hope. They key to success is finding a niche, and personalizing and customizing content. Paper-based medium is simply one of the means to distribute or disseminate information. The challenge is to change that medium into one that is more appealing to a broader market that includes the younger generation.
As with greeting cards, recent experience shows that success can continue through low-volume, high-margin, and highly customized products from small businesses that are appealing to younger buyers. I find this trend encouraging. I believe we need to bring back the personal touch in this impersonal age.
Marvin Tort is a former managing editor of BusinessWorld, and a former chairman of the Philippines Press Council.
