“Closets are for Clothes.” “You’re Trans-Tastic.” “It’s a Simple Story of Boy Meets Boy.”
These are some of the sayings found on Hallmark greeting cards in a revamped section at a Walgreens store in San Francisco’s Castro District, an area where 95% of residents identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender — higher than anywhere else in the country.
Included in the new section features are more than 50 Hallmark cards tailored to the LGBT community, including a collection of 12 StudioINK cards titled, “Out and About.”
The just-relaunched section features cards for events like same-sex marriages and baby showers for two moms or two dads.
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“Our cards are much more relevant now,” Sabrina Wiewel, Hallmark’s VP/GM of chain drug stores, told SN.
There’s also more gender-neutral signage. New signs feature photos of gay and lesbian couples and rainbow colors. All gender-specific signage commonly used to segment cards — such as “For Him” or “For Her” — has been removed.
The new section is the result of a year-long project that was launched after Hallmark officials visited the store and met with Walgreens officials.
“We learned that greeting cards weren’t speaking to the population,” Wiewel said.
Hallmark executed the project with input from Hallmark Employees Reaching Equality (HERE), the employee resource group representing and supporting Hallmark’s LGBT community; WPride, Walgreens’ LGBT business resource group; AARCH, Hallmark’s Asian American employee resource group and others.
“We started to brainstorm on ways to connect with the people in this community,” she said.
Based on customer interviews, the new section is a success, said Wiewel.
“One woman broke into tears because she no longer has to cherry pick when looking for cards,” she said.
Walgreens was unavailable for comment.
Date: June 17, 2015