Hallmark adds recordable card

New greeting cards allow users to record a 10-second message.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Looking to follow up on the success of its greeting cards that play music and sound clips, Hallmark Cards Inc., is letting customers get into the act.

On Monday, in time for Mother’s Day, the nation’s largest greeting-card seller is releasing a line of recordable cards that allow the sender to save a 10-second message on a computer chip embedded in the card, followed by a 15-second snippet of music.

As part of the release, Hallmark is focusing on mothers deployed overseas with the military. The company plans to travel to five U.S. military bases — the first visit was Tuesday at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas — and allow the children of military personnel to record greeting cards, which Hallmark will then mail overseas in time for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

“It’s an emotional value,” said Sarah Gronberg, publicity manager for the Kansas City, Mo.-based company. “We found the strongest reaction from parents. When they see this sort of thing exists, it [resonates] because if you can capture your kid’s voice when they’re little or when they’re not around you, that’s when you see the largest emotional connection.”

Hallmark introduced some of the cards at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony earlier this year and got several celebrities to make recordings, including Tom Hanks, Billy Joel, John Mellencamp and Chevy Chase. Gronberg said Hallmark is working with the military to send cards with some of these recordings to military personnel whose children weren’t able to participate in this month’s recording sessions.

The cards, which sell for $5.99 each, use a voice prompt to instruct users to press and hold a button inside the card and record a message, which is followed by the music.

The tunes for the eight designs available for Mother’s Day range from the sentimental — Tanya Tucker’s “Here’s Some Love” and Phil Collins’ “You’ll Be in My Heart” — to the alternative motherly greeting of Tag Team’s “Whoomp! There It Is.”

Once the senders are satisfied with the message, they tear out a paper insert to lock it into the sound chip’s memory. As long as the insert remains in the card, the message will be erased when the card closes and can be rerecorded.

Andre du Broc, an editorial director for the line, said that feature prevents card store shoppers from leaving “inappropriate” messages on the cards before they’re purchased.

The card’s battery has enough power for 220 plays, he said, and the card can be rerecorded multiple times.

The Sound Cards line, which includes several hundred designs and songs, has proven a winner for Hallmark in the two years since it went on sale. While the privately held company doesn’t break out sales figures for the cards separately, it said last month that they helped fuel an 8 percent rise in 2007 companywide revenue to $4.4 billion.

Hallmark’s main competitor, Cleveland-based American Greetings Inc., has sold its own line of sound and music cards for more than a year, said spokesman Frank Cirillo, adding that it also has been popular and expanded to several hundred cards. Besides sound, American Greetings also sells cards with blinking lights and animated images.

While American Greetings doesn’t have a recordable card, Cirillo said the company is experimenting with that, as well as other ways to add value and interest.