Spring wheat is red.
Canola is yellow.
We hope that spring seeding
Is easy and mellow.
The above sentiment is not Hallmark quality. John Courtney, the consumer and insight manager for Hallmark Cards, would state that emphatically, were he to read it.
Courtney spoke at the recent National Agri-Marketing Association meeting about the Hallmark brand, which is a strong one. According to the annual Equi-Trend Brand Equity survey, Hallmark is in the upper ranks of consumer recognition, along with heavyweights like Coke, Kraft, Kleenex, Visa, Heinz, Ritz, Oreo, Cheerios and Google.
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The Western Producer brand, like Hallmark, is a branded house rather than a house of brands. Everything we publish has the WP brand, as opposed to companies like Procter and Gamble, which makes Duracell, Crest, Olay, Ivory and Tide, without any obvious P & G connection except the fine print on the back label.
The exception for Hallmark is Crayola, which it owns. Courtney said Crayola is such a strong brand that linking it more clearly with Hallmark would have little advantage. But if you go to Kansas City, home of Hallmark, you will find the Crayola store next to the Hallmark gift store – unconnected, but neighbourly.
There are a few similarities between the WP and Hallmark. We’ve both been around for a while – Hallmark for 100 years and WP for 87. We both attract high quality consumers and business partners and have high employee retention.
And we both have a way with words, though WP verbiage tends to be less sentimental than that of Hallmark.
Good thing, too, or readers would be sobbing into their suppers while reading the WP, just as they mist up when those tear-jerking Hallmark commercials are on TV.
Beyond that, similarities are fewer. The WP can only aspire to Hallmark’s stature in terms of product written in 30 languages and distributed in 100 countries; its 14,000 employees; its cable channel and Emmy-winning television shows.
But ditties like this are the reason we’re not in the same business:
Herefords are red,
Belgians are blue,
Charolais are ivory
And they all say moo.
See Barb’s blog at www.producer.com
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