Some people who get cards this holiday season will need a smartphone to see what's inside. Hallmark is selling video greetings that make it easy to send montages of personalized videos.

Transcript

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

It is the season for holiday greeting cards, but it's growing more and more likely that you will need a smartphone to read what's inside. Hallmark has a new card that lets the sender personalize it with video messages. The company is the latest to bank on group video greetings as more consumers get comfortable on camera. Shannon Mullen reports.

SHANNON MULLEN, BYLINE: Hallmark is famous for saying things its customers can't. But with its new video greetings, the message comes straight from the sender - or senders.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) Happy holidays from the Blacks (ph).

MULLEN: To send one of these, you choose from a list of special occasions, then invite the people you want to submit videos. Once they do, Hallmark edits it all together with music and graphics.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Happy, happy birthday, baby girl.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) We wish that we were there.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Happy birthday, sis.

MULLEN: A digital version you can send by text or email costs $4.99. For a buck more, a paper card arrives by mail with a link inside that the recipient can scan with a cellphone to watch the video. Either way, it expires in six months but can be downloaded for keeps.

KRISTA MASILIONIS: It just makes for something that's unforgettable.

MULLEN: Krista Masilionis is Hallmark's global innovation director.

MASILIONIS: We've been around for 110 years. I want us to be around for another 110 more, so we've got to be there as the way people are connecting changes. And digital is how they're doing it.

MULLEN: Hallmark is the biggest brand to start packaging group videos for a price. The greetings industry term is digital expressions, and a handful of smaller companies already sell them. One called Tribute claims it was the first, starting in 2015. Its montages range from $29 for a version you edit yourself to a full-service option for 100. CEO Andrew Horne says Tribute has sold 5 million and counting, 4 million of those just since the start of COVID-19.

ANDREW HORN: There's been this absolute, you know, shift in consumer behavior over the past two years in the pandemic, where people are now, all of a sudden, comfortable, for better or worse, on video.

MULLEN: Some more than others - Horn says 80% of the people his customers invite to make videos for these greetings put off doing them until the deadline or after.

HORN: It does tend to take more effort. But now people are also starting to see that, like many things in life, some of the most rewarding things that we do are those that are challenging. And so people are embracing that challenge because they're seeing that the impact is actually profound and legitimate.

MULLEN: As for seeing themselves on camera, much less sharing feelings, Horn says awkwardness can lead to more meaningful connections.

BERNIE HOGAN: What's bad is when that is an inorganic process.

MULLEN: That's Dr. Bernie Hogan, a sociologist and senior research fellow at Oxford University's Internet Institute. He worries with digital greetings, people might feel pressured to make the videos, and the final product might not reflect the time and effort they put into them.

HOGAN: And so you come to resent these cards. And we don't (laughter) - you don't want a practice that leads to resentment.

MULLEN: At the Emily Post Institute, author and etiquette expert Lizzie Post says the person buying the greeting should make it optional for contributors and take the pressure off.

LIZZIE POST: Really encouraging people to not feel like they have to go over the top, to not even feel like they need to put on makeup or do their hair or something like that. And frankly, I think sometimes the ums and the ahs or the starts or the, like, squirrel moments that someone might have on camera - right? - are, like, actually so much more exactly who they are.

MULLEN: Post warns, when recording videos, always assume they could go public, and don't rush. But, she adds from personal experience, doing too many takes can take the fun out.

For NPR News, I'm Shannon Mullen.

(SOUNDBITE OF SHIGETO'S "A CHILD'S MIND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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