During the 2006 holiday season, gift cards sales reached $27.8 Billion , exceeding the estimated of the National Retail Federation by 3 Billion dollars! So how do you make plastic gift cards more personal? The answer comes not from a well known card company such as Hallmark, but from Wisconsin retailer - Lands End.
For those of you unfamiliar with Lands Ends personalization efforts, take a look at their swim suit area on their web site - a women and mix and match bathing suit tops and bottoms, pick suits designed for her unique body type and get an idea of how they will look on her by viewing the suit on a virtual model. Lands End has tapped into the emotion behind the buy. In the case of the swim suit, a women's fears of not looking good are minimized as much as possible through the aid of technology and fitting information.
Nothing is more personal than a sentiment expressed directly - Lands End understands the power that a voice of a loved one, a friend or parent carries. Leveraging the emotional connection that results when hearing a familiar voice, My Message Cards are designed to record a message that can be replayed hundreds of time. Besides the obvious personalized element of these cards, My Message Cards overcomes a flaw in the traditional greeting card industry - canned copy which can only approximate what the sender wants to say. In addition, this new card option has been made more 'female friendly' by the incorporation of children's artwork in the card designs.
As I watched this weekend's Memorial Day programming withs its stories about our soldiers in Iraq I thought about Lands End and a huge opportunity for them to create incredible buzz with their new talking cards. What if for just one day, perhaps this upcoming Father's Day, one free talking card could be offered to all military families to send a personal, talking message to their loved one overseas- compliments of Lands End. This personalized Cause program could be extended again at Thanksgiving, Xmas and birthdays for the military - a wonderful show of ongoing support. The positive buzz, PR and Brand building - not to mention the good will could be incredible. Anybody from Lands End Listening?
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