With most Christmas displays now out in all their glory and the crisp cold weather helping to encourage that elusive festive feeling, so the countdown to the all important last major card sending season of the year has started in earnest.
“While there are many factors that we cannot control in our business and personal lives at the moment, one thing we can all do in our industry is to send our own Christmas cards early, creating a great first wave of beautiful cards arriving in early December. Festive Friday provides the perfect focus for this,” urges Amanda Fergusson, ceo of the GCA.
Instigated by the GCA, Festive Friday is a designated date – this year it falls on November 29 – when everyone is encouraged to write and send their Christmas cards.
Building on the success and experience of previous years’ Festive Fridays, the GCA has developed a ‘toolkit’ including posters, flyers, email signoffs and social media graphics facilitating card publishers, retailers, trade suppliers and any interested parties to get creative and organise Christmas card-sending events in the lead up to or on the actual day itself. The toolkit is available from the GCA website (www.greetingcardassociation.org.uk/news/festive-friday-2019-new-toolkit) in the news section
“It is not at all prescriptive. Some companies might choose to put time aside during the day to all sit down together and write their cards, others initiate events in their local community by going into playcentres, schools, community centres, hospitals, charities, old people’s homes, churches armed with Christmas cards. The most important thing is that we get Christmas card sending for this year underway!” states Amanda.
One avid supporter of Festive Friday is Miles Robinson, co-owner of House of Cards, with the Home Counties retailer.
“I think Festive Friday is a brilliant GCA initiative and one that’s so simple for anyone to do,” Miles told PG Buzz. “Last year our staff sent over 1,000 cards for which we covered the postage, a relatively small price to pay when you think that by doing so they brought a smile to over 1,000 people/families in early December.”
Miles truly believes that Festive Friday “definitely works in prompting the sending of Christmas cards, which this year might be even more welcome. Our posters are already done and the House of Cards’ Festive Friday countdown has begun!”
Amanda urges anyone who is planning any Festive Friday activity to let her know on amandagca@max-publishing.co.uk
Top: The GCA’s downloadable Festive Friday toolkit includes banners for email signoffs, social media posts, posters for events and ideas of how to get involved.
