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Ajita Shashidhar

Chennai , Dec. 29

FROM using innovative techniques to make its greeting cards look and feel more attractive to launching the cards at various price-points, ITC's greeting cards division has gone all out this year to promote the usage of paper cards.

To make paper cards more interesting, the company throughout the festival season this year has been offering value-additions. The Rakshabandhan cards for instance, came with rakhis, while the Diwali greeting cards were accompanied with coins which had images of Goddess Lakshmi.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Chand Das, Chief Executive, Greeting Card Business (Gold Flake Expressions), ITC Ltd, said that this concept of offering value additions was a global trend this year. "Greeting card companies across the world had similar problems to tackle, therefore, most companies tried to make their cards look as interesting as possible."

Apart from value-adds, ITC has also launched New Year greeting cards at price-points as low as Rs 3 this year. "By launching cards at such low price-points we have tried to expand the market," said Mr Das.

The company, according to Mr Das, has tried to further expand the market by launching vernacular cards for everyday occasions such as birthdays and wedding anniversaries, instead of concentrating on this segment only during festivals. "We have launched a range of cards in Hindi and Marathi this year, and plan to launch cards in Gujarati, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada next year," said Mr Das.

In an effort to step up usage, the company had also tied up with courier company, DTDC, during Diwali, to enable customers to courier their cards free of cost. This scheme, according to Mr Das, met with great success.

The company is also planning to expand its other greeting and gifting items by January 2004. "We already have items such as wrapping papers and autograph books, and are now planning to add posters and bookmarks to the list."

While Mr Das expects a 5 five per cent growth in the greeting card industry this year after two years of stagnant growth, he says that Expressions has already clocked a 40 per cent growth over last year.

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