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Father's Day
Celebrated on June 15, 2008
| Father’s Day is always the third Sunday in June. |
| Father’s Day is the fourth-largest card-sending holiday in the United States, with 102 million cards exchanged annually. |
| 50 percent of all Father’s Day cards are purchased for dads. Nearly 20 percent of Father’s Day cards are purchased for husbands. Other categories include grandfathers, sons, brothers, uncles, and someone special. |
| Two top-selling and important kinds of cards are “Dad from Daughter” and cards from a couple or family group – “Dad From Both” and “Our Wish.” |
| Hallmark has been producing Father’s Day cards since the early 1920s. |
2008 Product Features
- Hallmark offers more than 800 cards for Father’s Day, including Warm Wishes value cards at 99 cents, Shoebox humor cards, Mahogany cards for African-American consumers and Sinceramente Hallmark designs with Spanish and bilingual messages designed for Hispanic consumers.
- Father’s Day also brings out the latest innovations from Hallmark – Recordable Cards With Sound and Cards With Sound Photo Holders. The recordable cards allow the sender to record a 10-second personalized dedication message for the recipient before the pre-recorded sound clip begins. The photo holders have a place on the front of the card into which the sender can insert a 4-by-6-inch photograph.
- Father’s Day is the first season Hallmark is introducing comedian Chris Rock and The Simpsons® properties into seasonal cards, including the Cards With Sound line.
- Hallmark Gold Crown® stores offer the widest variety of unique and innovative cards including Cards With Sound that play favorite songs and audio clips from movies and TV shows, and Cards With Motion that present an animated scene when the card is tipped from side to side. Some of the Cards With Motion also feature sound.
- A new Recordable Frame enables the giver to record a 10-second message that Dad can play over and over while enjoying a 4-by-6-inch photo inserted inside the frame. It is available for $12.95 with each purchase of three Hallmark cards ($18 value).
- Consumers can create a unique gift by adding their favorite photos to the Photo Paper Weight, Photo Coasters or Photo Key Chain, as well as the Color-Your-Own Frame Kit and Create-Your-Own Travel Mug Kit.
- Hallmark Gold Crown stores offer a variety of Father’s Day gifts including photo frames, albums and Instant Scrapbooks; plaques, trophies, and humorous T-shirts.
- Gift Books From Hallmark offers titles such as A Grandfather’s Legacy, Wit & Wisdom of Fathers and the humorous Dad Gets His Way ticket book.
- Hallmark also offers balloons, and a variety of gift bags, wrap, tissue and add-ons to make one-stop Father’s Day shopping easy.
Hallmark Research
According to Hallmark consumer research about Father's Day:
- Men like to be affirmed. Many men expect, and 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 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.
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