The Hindu Business Line : Business on the cards

When you want to send a greeting, support a social cause and build your brand, it makes sense to club all three. Which is exactly what some corporates are doing, by selling greeting cards produced by various NGOs.

Being a great brand or a great marketing company is not all that matters. Corporates today also want to be identified as socially responsible citizens. And just as they plan their marketing and sales strategies for the year, most corporates also plan out their philanthropic activities for the entire year.

Almost all the greeting card majors in the country, Archies, Expressions or Hallmark, are promoting some social cause or the other. While Archies is associated with CRY and Helpage India, Expressions is associated with the SOS Village of India, and Hallmark works with the Cancer Patients Aid Association.

These associations are not for mere philanthropic purposes. There is a long-drawn business strategy supporting them. It is virtually mandatory for every commercial greeting card company to support a social cause, and this is a global trend, says Chand Das, Chief Executive, ITC Greeting Card Business, which manufactures Goldflake Expressions Cards.

ITC, for instance, manufactures and markets SOS cards, and Archies also has a similar kind of relationship with Helpage and CRY, by which it takes care of the production and marketing of their greeting cards.

Das says that world over, when an institution or a company wants to buy greeting cards, it usually wants to support a social cause, and therefore prefers buying cards promoted by a social organisation. These kind of purchases usually happen during Christmas and New Year, and therefore, it makes great business sense for a greeting card company to support a social cause.

Vijayant Chhabra, Executive Director, Archies Ltd, agrees. Most corporates take pride in sending a charitable card during Christmas and New Year, as it is their way of projecting themselves as socially-responsible citizens. By running the entire business for the NGOs we are also doing our bit as socially-responsible corporates, as we believe that the NGO shouldn't get distracted in engaging in commercial activity. That would be a conflict of interest.

The market for charitable cards in India, according to Das, would be to the tune of Rs 50 crore. The revenue generated for the social organisation usually depends on the sale of the cards, but over and above that, the card company also gives the NGO a minimum guarantee.

But why is it that an SOS or a Helpage card is sold only during New Year or Christmas and is not extended to personalised events such as birthdays or wedding anniversaries?

Chhabra says that selling charitable cards for personalised occasions has not worked even internationally. Charitable cards are mostly bought by institutions and organisations and have never been popular in the personal segment.

However, ITC is doing its bit to promote SOS cards in the institutional segment. We sold SOS cards on Teacher's Day and Doctors' Day, when we got parents to buy SOS cards for their children's teachers. Similarly, we got pharmaceutical companies and hospitals to buy SOS cards to send to doctors on Doctors' Day. We are looking at expanding the breadth of SOS cards beyond New Year, says Das.

Though most greeting card companies are concentrating on just manufacturing and marketing charitable cards, ITC has gone a step ahead by organising an annual event for the children of the SOS Village called `Nurturing Tomorrow', which looks at exploring the creative talent of the children of the village. We organised a theatre workshop in 2003, during which we conducted a talent search across 20 SOS villages and finally 16 children performed in a play titled Punch A Tantra conducted by theatre group Clowns R US in Delhi, says Das. The year before, the company had organised an art workshop where painters like M.F. Husain visited the SOS villages across the country and gave children tips on art.

Coming back to future trends in the charitable cards segment in India, Das says that card buyers would soon have options to support various causes. Most card companies in the West have charity guilds that enable buyers to support various causes such as underprivileged children, elderly people or cancer patients. And this trend is likely come to India too, he adds.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

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