Business: The Greeting Card King

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IN the early days, Christmas, St. Valentine's Day and birthdays were the major occasions for greeting cards. Hall pushed the idea of cards for every sentiment, every event, now does 50% of his annual business outside of the big holidays. He went after such writers as Ogden Nash and Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, brought in such artists as Saul Steinberg, Grandma Moses, Edward Hopper, Andrew Wyeth, sponsored touring Hallmark art exhibits across the U.S. He was told time and again that Sir Winston Churchill would never agree to have his paintings on greeting cards. Churchill was delighted, and Hallmark sold 4.5 million Churchill cards the very first year, about half the number of Hallmark's alltime bestseller—a cart loaded with pansies that is suitable for almost every occasion.

Overriding all is what Hall wryly calls his "ten-point program'' for sales success: the first nine points are distribution. To get his cards into the stores and keep them there, he set up a sales system that replaced the helter-skelter collection of boxes under the counter with a long display rack that put the selection out in the open. Hallmark sells the display racks to retailers at cost, also assumes responsibility for keeping the store's stock—both from Hallmark and from competitors—up-to-date, re-ordering when the cards get low. All the retailer has to do is ring the cash register. While others in the industry also use the system, Hall says that his company does the job more often, thus knows precisely which cards are selling, which are duds, when to introduce new designs.

LAST week, while U.S. citizens thought about their 1959 cards, Hall was going over the 1960 line, studying it during the day, taking it home at night to see how it looked by the light of the fireplace in his Georgian mansion set on a 700-acre farm outside Kansas City. Some time soon, Christmas 1960 will go to press, and next year every American will get at least one greeting card the original of which is back at Hallmark bearing a curt "O.K., J.C."