Sunday, June 9, 2002

Who’s Responsible for the Verses that Announce Every Holiday Imaginable? If You’re Thinking Blue-Haired Ladies, Think Again.

By HOWARD ROSENBERG (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

As I’m often reminded at home, cards can be their own therapy. Take Fresh Ink, the relatively new Hallmark line whose passionate editorial director is 33-year-old Conti, a goateed poet in T-shirt and blue jeans who was inspired to write by the verses of Robert Frost.

Fresh Ink sells especially well at college bookstores. The typical buyer is female, age 18 to 39, well-educated and turned off by traditional cards. A card catches my eye; the front is a period photo of one elderly woman speaking to another on a park bench. The caption reads: “Is it ‘butt naked’ or ‘buck naked’?” Inside it continues: “These are the kinds of questions I come to you for.”

Speaking the obscure tongue of card marketing, Conti talks about “emotional sharability,” envisioning how “butt naked” vs. “buck naked” may seduce a potential Fresh Ink buyer. “She’s a young woman standing at the rack and looking at those cards. She picks up this one. She sees these two old women. She thinks to herself, ‘This will be my friend and me in 50 years.’ ”

(Property of the L.A. Times)