Passionate plea from indie Kaye Thurgood brought #Cardmitment campaign to life
An impassioned speech kicked off a PG/GCA Retailer Roundtable on the thorny subject of reminding people how important it is to send and receive Christmas cards.
The lively discussion, which took place on Tuesday, 1 August, immediately after The Henries Awards judging, heard how Kaye Thurgood’s observations from her two Sincerely Yours stores in Shenfield and Hornchurch had galvanised the GCA into launching its #Cardmitment campaign with the aim of reminding UK consumers that cards build connections, and how much they love sending and receiving them, as well as amplifying local cardies’ charity initiatives.
Kaye opened the Retailer Roundtable at London’s Business Design Centre, telling many of the retailers who had taken part in the awards live judging session: “We used to look forward to Christmas but last year it was flat and depressing. People were coming in and saying they weren’t going to send cards – so people weren’t receiving them.”
The problem, as Kaye explained, is that people were using the long-running postal workers’ strikes as an excuse not to bother with the much-loved 180-year-old Christmas card tradition – including the TV presenter who twice said live on BBC Breakfast that they couldn’t see the point – and folk may not get back into the habit this festive season without being given a push.
“I was talking to PG’s Jakki Brown about this in January,” Kaye added, “after a very difficult Christmas, and we can’t say this is a blip because people could get used to the new normal and won’t send cards any more, so we’ve got to change their buying habits.
“I was thanking people in January for buying Christmas cards in the sale telling them ‘somebody from this charity is now going to get paid’, and there are loads of strands to this, the loneliness factor where people don’t receive cards, encouraging children to write cards because if they don’t receive them they don’t realise they need to write them, it’s the whole reciprocal thing.
“I’m passionate about it – I could spend my buyers’ money on other things in my shop but, actually, I don’t want to. I really want to embrace Christmas card sending and try to encourage customers to do so too.”
At this first roundtable for retailers, organised by PG and GCA, Jakki explained how she had put Kaye’s concept forward at a GCA council meeting and it was unanimously supported.
“Kaye’s voice was loud and clear in her call to action,” GCA ceo Amanda Fergusson said, “so act we have! Over the last few months we’ve pulled together a very clear brief for what we want to achieve from our #Cardmitment campaign because a campaign is what we need.
“This campaign is all about sharing the joy of sending and receiving cards, sharing the connections that a card brings, sharing how they build communities, they spread joy, and we all know that people who receive cards are more likely to send them.”:
Explaining the GCA has appointed Wolverhampton-based Arena PR to run the campaign, Amanda said owners Andrea Ross and Nick Agarwal are already working on a broad spectrum of ideas to encourage card sending and targeting all forms of local and national media, as well as collating information and statistics to take to government when Royal Mail tries again to alter the terms of its six-day-week Universal Service Obligation.
And she encouraged all retailers to share their plans and ideas with Arena PR via the gca@arena-pr.com email so they can help share and publicise these.
Jo Sorrell, of Cardies in Stevenage, mentioned the knitted postbox toppers her aunt and friends love designing and distributing around her local area as an idea that could be replicated in other areas.
Heidi Early, of Stoke Newington’s Earlybird, explained the effectiveness of a simple window display she had created for Thinking Of You Week, featuring lots of envelopes each addressed to someone, such as a cousin in America, or a friend in Australia, as suggestions for who to send cards to.
Sales agent Rosie Trow also cited the Scout Post initiative that has proved so successful in the Swindon area for indie card retailer Expressions, where customers buy a special Scouts Post stamp for 35p, return to drop off their cards in the shop, which are collected daily and the Scouts then hand deliver them.
In the wider concept of card sending Nilou Noorbaksh, co-owner of Jumping Bean’s three south London stores, said: “It’s quite important with the whole mental wellbeing as it’s not just about Christmas, it’s about reaching out to people and connecting, whether they’re isolated through physical or mental disabilities, because we know loneliness kills, we know isolation kills, so it’s important to send that card.
“We work with certain charities like Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm) and, when they had a ball, we donated 150 cards which we’d otherwise be putting in the sale. They said what a great message that was that everyone left with a card to hopefully send on to someone.”
In a similar vein, Red Card’s Sally Matson said she’s constantly asked for raffle prizes at her Petworth shop so now makes up bundles of cards that she’s been given as samples or would go in the sale, ties them with pretty ribbons ready for the next request, thereby encouraging card sending.
Andrea Pinder, of Presentation in Barrowford ,explained she uses her sample cards to raise money for local charities by selling them to customers at a reasonable price then donating the money to a worthy cause.
Working with children and older people was also a popular suggestion, with the idea of helping schools by donating cards for handwriting lessons, and also taking part in the GCA Caring At Christmas initiative that’s spearheaded by Matt Genower, md of Five Dollar Shake, where cards will be taken into care homes as an activity to help residents choose which to write and send to their loved ones because they can’t get out to buy them.
Amanda took on board the retailers’ requests for a fact file so they have information at their fingertips when customers ask, including what happens to the money raised through charity cards, how important the £1.7billion greeting card industry is to the UK economy, and last posting dates, particularly for overseas destinations where it can be as early as September for the cheapest rates.
Wrapping up the session, Amanda reiterated that Arena PR want to hear of any retailers’ initiatives that may boost card sending via the gca@arena-pr.com email – and suggested asking local MPs, who will soon be on the election trail so after any good publicity they can get, to judge competitions, present prizes, or simply visit the store to boost independent businesses, and make sure photos are taken and the local press informed.
