Dean Morris, founder of Dean Morris Cards has a new signoff on his correspondence ‘surprisingly respectable’ and is planning where to hang some new wall art – a framed copy of a two page article, that appeared in the recent edition of the Mail on Sunday (October 21) that while knocking some of the publisher’s designs in actual fact has boosted its sales.
The article, with a headline of ‘We find the (surprisingly respectable) artist who creates those horrid greetings cards and ask: What ARE you playing at?’ revisits a Daily Mail ‘chestnut topic’ of rude greeting cards, but ends up effectively advertising Scribbler and Dean Morris.
‘Buying a greeting card used to be a gentle, uncomplicated experience,’ begins the article by John Frost and Christina Challand. ‘You browsed the shelves and chose between a chocolate box scene, a gaudy children’s design or, the same middle-class option of a miniature reproduction of a famous artwork,’ they wrote setting the scene, before coming in for the punchline: ‘But all that has changed – and not for the better’ before going on to detail what they describe as a ‘minefield of crude designs’ with proclaims Scribbler as the top purveyors of these types of cards and Dean Morris the leading producer.
Dean – who told PG Buzz he was amused by the description of his Wolverhampton-based card publishing business as “a cottage industry of vile expletives” – was working on some new designs last Friday afternoon when a freelance reporter and photographer knocked at the door of his studio, saying they ‘wanted to tell his side of the story’.
Dean natural bonhomie worked a treat, leaving the journalist no option but to write ‘there is nothing remotely crude or sweary about the 44 year old’ even making mention of the fact that he was wearing socks!
Dean was more than happy to justify his greeting card portfolio, quite rightly explaining that if the public didn’t want the card designs they wouldn’t buy them, making the point that one person’s offensive greeting card is another person’s display of affection.
“I think humour is a great force for good and we could with more of it in this world,” Dean pointed out.
The newspaper took Dean’s nuggets, plundered his business social media channels for a photos of him and his cards, added in information about the card trade as well as some archive details on Scribbler and dedicated almost two pages to the piece.
“I suppose it wasn’t a bad bit of advertising,” sums up Dean Morris, who admitted that his website saw a “bit of a uplift in traffic” on the day the article was published. The only bit he took exception to was the inference that he didn’t like his own cards. “I am very proud of what we publish. It is just that I rarely send my own cards as that would make me look a bit lazy.”
* Elsewhere in the same edition of the paper, was a story about Christmas cards from the Queen Mother, that had been stolen from Kensington Palace, going on sale for £1,000 each.
Top: Dean saw an uplift in sales as result of the coverage.
