Father's Day

2009 Product Features

• Hallmark offers more than 800 cards for Father’s Day, including 99-cent value cards, Shoebox humor cards, Mahogany cards for African-American consumers and Hallmark Sinceramente designs with Spanish and bilingual messages designed for Hispanic consumers.
• Father’s Day also brings out the latest innovations from Hallmark. Twenty-four new Recordable Cards enable the sender to record a 10-second personal message that plays when the recipient opens the card. This new format does not include music, making the recorded message stand out.
• Twelve new yourParenthood Father’s Day cards were created by consumers as part of Hallmark’s ongoing greeting card contests. Consumers submitted their own photos and sentiments that will put a smile on any dad’s face. Each purchase of a yourParenthood card counts as a vote toward the grand-prize winner, which will be announced June 29. Consumers also may vote online at www.hallmarkcontests.com.
• To meet consumer needs, a variety of cards for special circumstances have been added to the 2009 line, including “Brother’s First Father’s Day,” “Son's First Father’s day,” “Dad Having a Difficult Year,” “Husband Having a Difficult Year,” “Patriotic Dad,” “Patriotic Grandfather,” “Son – Soon to Be a Dad,” and “Loss of Child.”
• Hallmark Gold Crown® stores offer the widest variety of unique and innovative cards including:
  – Cards With Sound that play favorite songs such as “The Best is Yet to Come” by Frank Sinatra and “We Will Rock You” by Queen, and audio clips from movies and TV shows such as Star Wars and The Office.
  – Hallmark (PRODUCT) RED™ Father’s Day cards that help save lives in Africa.
  – Recordable Cards With Music that enable the sender to record a 10-second message before a pre-recorded song clip plays.
  – Big Time Sound: Large-size cards that play favorite songs and audio clips from movies and TV shows with enhanced sound.
  – Dueling Speaker cards with two interacting sound chips.
  – Cards With Motion that play a fully animated two-second scene when you tip the card from side to side. Some of these cards also include sound.
• Two new recordable photo frames – one for Dad and one for Grandpa – enable the giver to record a message that can be replayed over and over. They are available at a special price with the purchase of three Hallmark cards.
• Consumers can create a unique gift by adding a favorite photo to the insulated photo mug, available at a special price with the purchase of three Hallmark cards. Other items that can be personalized with decorations or a child’s artwork include a photo frame, doodle travel mug and paperweight. Two Crayola® shadow-box frames come with paint to record a moment in time by printing and framing a child’s handprint.
• Hallmark Gold Crown stores offer a variety of additional Father’s Day gifts including photo frames, albums and Instant Scrapbooks; mugs, stone coasters, and humorous T-shirts.
• Gift Books From Hallmark offers titles such as A Father’s Legacy, A Grandparent’s Legacy, Superdad and His Daring Dadventures, and The ESPN Uncyclopedia.
• Hallmark also a variety of gift bags, wrap, tissue and add-ons to make one-stop Father’s Day shopping easy, as well as paper partyware to enhance the celebration.

Hallmark Research

According to Hallmark consumer research about Father's Day:

• Men like to be affirmed. Many men expect, but are tired of, the “put-down” cards and would like to feel more appreciated. Cards that offer genuine compliments (humor or non-humor) resonate with these men.
• What consumers are trying to accomplish at Father’s Day is actually the same as at Mother’s Day:
  – Make dad feel loved, cared about, appreciated, special.
  – Let him know you are thinking about him.
  – Brighten his day.
  However, how consumers go about trying to accomplish this, and their perceptions of how important it is to the recipient differs.
• Through maturity and experience people begin to recognize their parents’ mortality and come to appreciate how fortunate they are to have their fathers.
• As consumers move into the young/middle-parents life stage, they understand how challenging being a parent can be. That alters feelings about their own dads and intensifies the desire to celebrate him on Father’s Day.

Holiday History

A Babylonian youth named Elmesu carved the first known Father's Day card in clay nearly 4,000 years ago. His special message wished his father good health and a long life.

William Jackson Smart of Spokane, Wash., a man ahead of his time, is the inspiration for modern-day Father’s Day. Smart was a widower and Civil War veteran who was both father and mother to his six children for 21 years after the death of his wife. Smart’s daughter, Sonora Louise (Mrs. John Bruce Dodd), got the idea for Father’s Day in 1909 while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon at church. She encouraged local churches to institute a Father's Day observance the following year on one Sunday in June, the month of her father’s birth. Through her efforts, interest in the celebration of Father’s Day grew and spread to other cities and states.

Although many congressional resolutions proclaiming a national Father’s Day were introduced through the years, the holiday was made official in 1972 when President Richard Nixon signed a presidential resolution that declared Father’s Day as the third Sunday in June.

In Stores

Available at Hallmark Gold Crown® stores nationwide and wherever Hallmark products are sold. Use the store locator on Hallmark.com to find the nearest Hallmark Gold Crown store.