An inauspicious beginning.

AladdinSane wrote:

Furthermore, I don't really like what RCade has done with this new site...

rcade's not here, man.

AladdinSane wrote:

How the hell do you change the password to something I can remember?

Use the "Profile" link and you can change it to whatever you like.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

Sorry, I've been away for so long, I forgot to check previous posts and didn't see that Tojo2k beat me to it...

AladdinSane wrote:

Furthermore, I don't really like what RCade has done with this new site...

The lunatics run the asylum, now. What's wrong with the site, that you can see?

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Zoo, don't fret.

I am sure they have a card just for you too. Cranky old white republicans who are put out that they don't get any special attention for all the sufferring they have gone through to preserve traditional American values.

It always makes me laugh how it's assumed that anyone to the right of the majority here must be a Republican.

Seriously.  How many gay marriages and civil unions do you really think take place in America?

jesusluvspegging wrote:

Zookeeper wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Zoo, don't fret.

I am sure they have a card just for you too. Cranky old white republicans who are put out that they don't get any special attention for all the sufferring they have gone through to preserve traditional American values.

It always makes me laugh how it's assumed that anyone to the right of the majority here must be a Republican.

Seriously.  How many gay marriages and civil unions do you really think take place in America?

This is a move by Hallmark that assumes that the other 48 states will follow where Massachusetts and California have led.

It would be absurd for Hallmark to start printing and distributing greeting cards now on the basis that the other 48 states might eventually follow suit.  They will get far more sales from novelty purchases than actual gay marriages / civil unions.  Homosexuals account for a tiny (1% to 2%) percentage of the US population.  Of those only a small percent get married or form a civil union.  So you are talking about a small percent of a tiny percent (cut in half since each case involves two persons).  On the other hand this did get Hallmark in the news...

jesusluvspegging wrote:

Zookeeper wrote:

It would be absurd for Hallmark to start printing and distributing greeting cards now on the basis that the other 48 states might eventually follow suit.  They will get far more sales from novelty purchases than actual gay marriages / civil unions.  Homosexuals account for a tiny (1% to 2%) percentage of the US population.  Of those only a small percent get married or form a civil union.  So you are talking about a small percent of a tiny percent (cut in half since each case involves two persons).  On the other hand this did get Hallmark in the news...

Exactly.  It gets Hallmark in the news, they maybe (if there's a lot of backlash) throw the public a bone like making the cards internet purchase exclusive.  Then, whenever the gay marriage is legalized on a more widespread basis, they'll have established cred with the demographic.

If that's really their thinking then I think they are fools.  You put out a product once there is a market for it, not hoping that laws will eventually change to create a market for it.  If gay marriage becomes common I doubt people will say "let's make a point of getting a Hallmark gay marriage card (as opposed to any other brand) since they announced them FIRST!"  On the other hand, there will absolutely be right-wingers who make a point not to buy the Hallmark brand for any occasion now as well as in the future.  It's likely more people will make a point of avoiding the brand over this than favoring it.

Zookeeper wrote:

If that's really their thinking then I think they are fools.  You put out a product once there is a market for it, not hoping that laws will eventually change to create a market for it.

You fail to account for non-revenue motivations.  Goddamn it, man, don't you know the fucking Gay Agenda when you're looking at it?

Zookeeper wrote:

If that's really their thinking then I think they are fools.  You put out a product once there is a market for it, not hoping that laws will eventually change to create a market for it.  If gay marriage becomes common I doubt people will say "let's make a point of getting a Hallmark gay marriage card (as opposed to any other brand) since they announced them FIRST!"  On the other hand, there will absolutely be right-wingers who make a point not to buy the Hallmark brand for any occasion now as well as in the future.  It's likely more people will make a point of avoiding the brand over this than favoring it.

What this offends your delicate sensibilities to stumble across a reminder in the Rite-Aid that gays form commited unions too? I suppose you would rather have a Free Market don't ask don't tell policy. Why would you object to private industry catering to gays who want to share fully in what  American consumer culture has to offer in all it's tacky glory.

What do you think it costs hallmark a fortune to print up limited runs of  cards these days? It is not like they have to have monks etch wooden blocks and scrape lanterns for ink.

Plus your math is off. I thought gays made up 8% or more of the population. But lets use your figures.

2% of 305m  = 6.1 million gays in America

Say 10% get hitched. Thats 610,000.

Now not every single gay union will get a hallmark card. But you don't just divide in half because it takes 2 to get hitched.  Just like ike straight people, Hallmark is shooting for various friends and family to buy a few for each event.

So even if we use your low figures we are looking at a market share to capture of maybe  2 million.

At say $4 or more per card today  that's not a bad chunk of change for something that costs pennies to produce. Worth putting a few thousand in the rack of select stores and printing refills as needed when they sell.

Shucks, compared to some of their other special interest offerings it will probably fair better then as a loss leader. How many merry Kwanza cards to they sell anyways?

Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2008-08-25 12:51:10)

Scotty wrote:

Al!!!!!!!

Bout time we get some black folk around here!  And another conservative!  Great to see you again, sir!

I won't be around as often as I used to be in the Cruel days; unless something big happens, I'll be coming off the bench only once in a while...

AladdinSane wrote:

I won't be around as often as I used to be in the Cruel days; unless something big happens, I'll be coming off the bench only once in a while...

Just as long as you do continue to come around.

Zookeeper wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Zoo, don't fret.

I am sure they have a card just for you too. Cranky old white republicans who are put out that they don't get any special attention for all the sufferring they have gone through to preserve traditional American values.

It always makes me laugh how it's assumed that anyone to the right of the majority here must be a Republican....

Well pardon me.  Hard to tell from the way you parrot the party line and rattle off their spoon fed talking points. You sure sound like the bitch the GOP has made of American conservatives.

Back to the original topic before I go back to the bench...a warning: I'm already getting spam from the American Family Association, so be sure to check your email box to block any further email from them.

Out.

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

And Hallmark offers scads of Chanukha cards.*

Talk about an agenda! The friggin Jews killed Jesus and still Southern Baptists buy Hallmark cards.

Given the amount of Jewish friends and lovers I had from college days on while living within 2 hours of NYC. I was actually shocked to learn the actual demographics were only about 3.5 million jews in the 1980s. I mistakenlly thought everybody had 100 jewish friends. There have always been way less jews in America then gay people.

That's always amazed me; I live in a completely enclosed world, I guess. In my little sphere of existence, most people are gay and significantly more than 2 percent are Jewish.

By the way George, you should be more specific in your measurements. One scad is equivalent to 2.71 metric plethoras. Otherwise, a scad amounts to 1.47 imperial plethoras. You're simply going to confuse people.

Last edited by Taint (2008-08-25 14:47:45)

phreddy wrote:

,"a hunka hunka burnin love".

Sounds like the clap to me.  Now is this standard clap or that psycho Vietnamese shit.

phreddy wrote:

Lad, welcome back.  We need a little conservative backup during these bleak times.  The place is crawling with liberals.  Though, I will say, with the exception of a few dunderheads, they are mostly thoughtful and intelligent in their posts.  Did you finally acquire gainful employment?  Hope so.

Okay, this begs for a listing of said dunderheads....

heh.

BTW... welcome back Lad.  We needed the official http://www.theblackrepublican.net/ blessing for High Street...

As Dmtdust has been known to say..... 

Get a room....

phreddy wrote:

Whereas, you and I could get drunk and tell war stories, over and over again.

Are you sure?

Scottyquote wrote:

Fixed.  I'm sure it would be the same one ad infinitum.

Always good to get ignorant input on this.

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Zookeeper wrote:

It always makes me laugh how it's assumed that anyone to the right of the majority here must be a Republican....

Well pardon me.  Hard to tell from the way you parrot the party line and rattle off their spoon fed talking points. You sure sound like the bitch the GOP has made of American conservatives.

No Johnny, it just feels that way to you.  Anyone to the right of you sounds like a Republican.  I guess since you are clearly to the left of me you must be parroting the Democrat party line and rattling off their talking points.  Come to think of it, Horse is left of me too.  You must agree with him on everything.

Agreeing more often with one party than the other doesn't make me a member of said party.  On many points I'm more sympathetic to the LP point of view.

Taint wrote:

I live in a completely enclosed world, I guess. In my little sphere of existence, most people are gay.

Do you live in a state that has gay marriage or civil unions?  If so how many of the gay people you know are married or are in civil unions?  If you don't live in an applicable state how many of them would you expect to get married or enter into a civil union if they were available?

MSG Tripps wrote:

Do not waste any words, Zookeeper.

I hate to break it Dhal but most of yours are indeed wastes if not completely incomprehensible.

Dmtdust wrote:

Okay, this begs for a listing of said dunderheads....

heh.

BTW... welcome back Lad.  We needed the official http://www.theblackrepublican.net/ blessing for High Street...

Present!

Zookeeper wrote:

Johnny_Rotten wrote:

Zoo, don't fret.

I am sure they have a card just for you too. Cranky old white republicans who are put out that they don't get any special attention for all the sufferring they have gone through to preserve traditional American values.

It always makes me laugh how it's assumed that anyone to the right of the majority here must be a Republican.

Seriously.  How many gay marriages and civil unions do you really think take place in America?

I've been to two, complete with Rabbis, and that was about 10 years ago, and they're not even "legal" here in Illinois.  Many gays have committment ceremonies.

Zookeeper wrote:

No, why would it?  Does one have to be a bigot to have an opinion on this you don't agree with?

Sorry if impugned your reputation. Please enlighten us as to nuances of if and how you envision gays should be treated differently in marketting to their needs alongside the rest of America.

Which private industry did I object to?  I called it a stupid move by Hallmark.  I didn't cite a single reason that had anything to do with morality, offensiveness or religion.  Lots of products and marketing acts are called stupid by posters here.  Why must gay wedding cards be immune to such criticism?  I suppose you would rather only have products called stupid here that don't offend your delicate sensibilities?

Quite disingenuous of you. You first raised the specter of a right wing backlash, which of course would be based in your opinion on just what? Critical analysis is fine and prudent on business ventures or sociology.

For argument's sake I think you put a lot of stake in the wingnut's backlash. Did Billy Bob stop drinking Coors when they hired the Cheney's Gay daughter for pandering purposes? In certain markets, Subaru has targeted advertising to lesbians, but when I bought my girlfriend one in Northern New England, I found out that it has been the best selling regional brand to everyone. I wouldn't wholly dismiss a religious right backlash though. I just think this minority segment doesn't have as much power as noise in the marketplace. Their political influence may well be outsized compared to larger moderate middle of America that is growing in acceptance of gays as we get used to them being out.

I used to work at a marketing agency.  Pursuing any new marketing campaign costs money in terms of internal resources.  They didn't just walk through the cubicle farm and grab the first person who didn't seem to be too busy that afternoon.

True, but given that the company has decades of experience rolling out products for even smaller niches, compared to any measure of total gay population, I bet it would not sink their boat offer a gay line of cards. Unless of course they do want to ramp up the marketting to garner favor in the gay community. You got a problem with private business pandering to segments of consumers?

Then you were mistaken.  The only report I've seen close to that high is the Kinsey figure (10%) published in the late 40's.  Most surveys, studies and estimates since then put the figure far lower.
...

First off, let's trim 37% from your starting number to exclude minors and folks over 65.  That brings it down to 3.8 million rather than 6.1.

...
Assuming 10% get hitched may be a bad assumption.  Massachusetts has had gay marriage for four years so I tried looking it up and got "there are no firm figures on how many such marriages have taken place.".  The rate is higher for lesbians than for gay men so just printing a card with two grooms leaves the largest segment of the market out.  If you can find some numbers on the percentage of homosexuals in Mass. who have gotten married it would be interesting to see.  But if you assume 10% that brings the number to 380,000, not 610,000.   

...
Where did that number come from?  You went from the assumption of 610,000 weddings to 2 million cards sold with no math to account for it.  But adopting your formula of multiplying the population by 3.278 the number would be adjusted down to 1.25 million cards sold.

Now let's take that number and remember that out of fifty states only two have gay marriage.  So it still isn't a usable number.  You have to go by the populations of the places that people would be getting married or having a civil union celebrated.

...

Hallmark doesn't get the full $4.  The merchant gets a fair chunk or it isn't worth it to them to put the cards on their shelf.  And distributors have limited space.  The decision to stock a card is weighed against other possible card options.  A store in West Hollywood would no doubt be happy to stock such cards since they have a large homosexual customer base due to their location.  But most stores would not sell many of those cards and would likely not want to give up the shelf space for them.

I know as much about selling greeting cards as I do used canoes. I didn't even look up any figures. But it is an interesting question. Just how big is the market and how many could they possibly sell.

I was vague in my numbers. I was thinking total market share over a longer term, not necessarily what they would sell next year. And potential total gross sales rather then just Hallmark's share. 

I do think  you are overlooking some factors:

The market is broader then the 2 states that have gay "marriage". I have been attending gay commitment ceremonies of friends for a decade now in other states. No matter what the law, it is becoming common practice for the folks involved and their card buying friends to call these ceremonies marriages. It is likely that all states will have civil unions even on the out chance that a anti homo marriage amendment could pass.

Hallmark's flexibility in offering niche product lines.

Their ability to adjust to regional market needs. Ramping up or shedding particular items as required. I bet they already stock more Happy MLK day cards in Atlanta then they do in Fnord's private Idaho or Maine. Some product lines must have an arc but are no less worth pursuing. I for one am glad to hardly see any Garfield cards these days. Given all the social  changes around acceptence, staking a claim in gay market penetration may be a safe bet.

2 grooms, 2 brides, congrats on your civil union, whatever sells they can produce as part of the line.

Some costs are low in offering a new line. It probably costs more to market and distribute then it does to produce these days. I had a friend who was a printer in the old days doing short runs of supermarket materials. I brought my  company a $10000 dollar multitasking printer for doing brochures as well as office stuff. It uses wax like chunks of ink rather then toner and has a extremely long maintenance interval. It can churn out my  friend's offset print shop's entire daily production at a fraction of the cost, manpower, overhead or mess.


They can probably make money on a line with even far less a sales target then the total US's potential gay unions/marriages that could occur over the next 5 years

Good question.  Kwanza is hardly celebrated but even with the small population of celebrants it has surely they live in all 50 states.  Gay marriage only is legal in 2 of them.  I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason Hallmark sells Kwanza cards is to avoid the bad press they fear they would get for not providing them.  They probably think that from a PR perspective they are better off selling Kwanza cards than discontinuing the line (even if none get purchased).  But I'd say it hurts the Hallmark brand name more to sell gay marriage cards than it would to not sell them.

That's pretty fanciful. Don't let the PC night terrors keep you up, get some rest.

Last edited by Johnny_Rotten (2008-08-26 01:02:25)