1. Sales of the roughly $7B greeting card category are declining at an annualized rate of 3% through 2023 (IBISWorld 2019).

2. From 2013–2018, greetings cards lost 27% of their retail shelf space (CoStar Group as cited in USA Today March 2019).

3. Dr. Robert Waldinger is the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. His 2015 TED Talk has been viewed +26M times.

4. The Atlantic reports that the average number of close friends or confidants Americans have has fallen to two despite increasing connectivity.

5. Nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone (Cigna 2018 U.S. Loneliness Index). Loneliness has been linked to heart disease, cancer, depression, diabetes and suicide (The New York Times, December 2017).

6. Elite athletes (icons of physical strength) conveyed the notion that true strength lies more in our relationships than exercise.

The platform: Connections Build Us

Getting people to see card-giving as a strategy for wellness meant showing it in the context of current wellness behaviors. We’d need to leverage trends in diet, exercise, and self-care, as well as make enemies of common detractors of wellness, like loneliness and technology.

We started with exercise. In “True Test of Strength,” elite athletes were challenged to test “the next big thing” in heart health. However, rather than cardio or calisthenics, the real test was to simply honor their relationships with a card. The result was an emotional film that proved to audiences that the healthiest, strongest you is the most meaningfully connected you, and that cards are a great way to build those connections.

To extend this idea, American Greetings:

-Partnered with wellness influencers to share their relationship-care stories

-Created custom content with wellness publishers

-Developed real-life emotional fitness classes with the YMCA

Cards are one of few products designed exclusively to be given. But the altruistic benefit of making others feel good wasn’t cutting it anymore. So we broke category tradition and shifted the benefit to the giver—from “it makes them feel good” to “it makes you feel good.”

“Feeling good” today is paramount. In response to record-setting stress levels, Americans are investing more time, energy, and money into their personal well-being. Wellness is now a $4T category with no shortage of diet, exercise, and self-care trends—from the tried and true to the downright out there. We’re clearly searching for something and looking everywhere for it but the most important place: each other.

An 80-year-long study on adult development from Harvard University found that the single biggest predictor of overall well-being (health and happiness) is the quality of our relationships. The key to wellness is not within us. It’s between us.

Yet the quality of our relationships is eroding. Americans have fewer close friends than ever before. Loneliness looms as a global health epidemic.

The role for AG and the argument for card-giving was compelling: as a more meaningful form of connection, cards build and nurture the relationships that make us well.

This effort led to more than a campaign. It was a transformational first step in the turnaround of a brand and category. By attaching a dying behavior to a thriving behavior, this creative strategy:

Cut through with our audience with organic engagement rates 150% above benchmarks—Millward Brown Campaign Tracking March 2018

Drove an 8ppt lift in purchase intent of cards, more than double the CPG benchmark—Millward Brown Campaign Tracking

Gave them “a new reason to give cards” (70% agree)—August 2018 Strategic Platform Research

Conveyed that “giving cards is important” (83% agree)—August 2018 Strategic Platform Research

Links American Greetings to relevant and growing in-store categories like health and wellness

Spawning new product lines that are securing incremental distribution with retail partners.

It’s serving as leverage, equity, and swagger in contract renegotiations with American Greetings’ most important retail partners.

When we build connections, connections build us.