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By Jennifer Vogelsong, York Daily Record, Pa.
Nov. 14--Greeting card manufacturers have found a way to combine the fun sounds of customizable e-cards with the popularity of personal paper greetings.
Cards with sound modules and microchips are giving voice to an industry that has been silent for decades, drawing both individual consumers and companies wanting to make a memorable impression on their customers.
This summer, Hallmark rolled out a collection of more than 220 sound cards, which add a little something extra to the standard artwork and a message. They feature bits of original songs recorded by more than 100 artists, as well as snippets of audio from popular TV shows and films.
For the holidays, you'll find cards with songs by crooners like Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby in the company's more than 4,000 Hallmark Gold stores -- as well as greetings that include famous lines from seasonal flicks such as "A Christmas Story" and "Miracle on 34th Street."
Hallmark spokeswoman Holly Bachard said the cards use a slide mechanism, lithium ion battery and integrated-circuit brain chip programmed with sound from wave files. The flat square pieces are embedded in the fold of the cards and are activated upon opening.
Bachard said the cards -- especially ones featuring lines from the movie "Napoleon Dynamite," measures from composer George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" or snippets of "The Chicken Dance" (aimed at newlyweds) -- have been quite popular.
"Music adds an element of emotion that sometimes you can't convey with words," she said. "It brings the sentiment you're trying to tell someone to life."
Closer to home, Kelli Fusaro of Reading hit on a way to turn her career as a singer and music teacher into a profitable business when her greeting cards with CDs of her music inside were featured on QVC three years ago.
Her company, Sound Expressions Greetings, became even more cutting edge in January, when she found a way to program 4- by-2-inch sound modules with custom messages for her corporate customers.
Customers use wave files to record their 10- to 60-second sound byte or jingle, e-mail it to her, and she programs it into a sound module. Then, in her company's China production facility, workers insert the modules into the folds of a greeting card, gluing the layers together by hand.
Opening the card activates the module's pull tab and produces the sound. Fusaro said the cards, which cost about $4 each (minimum order of 500) have a shelf life of about a year, depending on how many times they are opened and played.
"Ordinary greeting cards are kind of boring, and they're becoming obsolete," she said. "People want something new and exciting. When you open a regular greeting card, you know what to expect, but when you open something with sound, it's a surprise."
She predicts the next big thing on the greeting card horizon will be cards with movement.
Fusano said the technology for making such cards is being patented. Embedded motorized pieces would make it possible for a butterfly in a card to flap its wings, for instance.
"This all seems to be the thing," she said. "People don't want just a plain card anymore."
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