Hallmark celebrates Pride Month by offering a free Digital Video Greeting throughout June

The Pride Month Digital Video Greeting is available for free, June 1-30, and encourages consumers to show their pride and share their love

KANSAS CITY, Mo., June 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- At a time to commemorate the impact of the LGBTQIA+ community, Hallmark Cards, Inc. is proud to celebrate Pride Month by offering a free Digital Video Greeting during the entire month of June. The innovative greeting option makes it easier than ever to create and send a personalized pride message, giving users a unique way to celebrate Pride Month with anyone, anywhere.

Built on a reputation of helping consumers live more caring and connected lives filled with meaningful moments, Hallmark regularly celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community with greeting cards, gifts and Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments. For Pride Month 2022, the offering expands as customers can visit www.Hallmark.com/Pride to create and send a free Pride Month Digital Video Greeting.

The greeting is fully customizable and allows individuals or groups to create a personalized message by adding text, music, photos and videos that show their pride, their way. Once created, individuals can instantly send the Pride Month Digital Video Greeting via text or email and share it on social media.

"Having in-store products for the LGBTQIA+ community – and now a dedicated Pride Month Digital Video Greeting – makes me feel seen and valued as a person," said Andy Adams, Hallmark's loyalty and local store marketing manager. Adams noted he's proud to work for a company that offers products representing him as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. "Ongoing encouragement and recognition are important to not only ensure we are seen, but a valued part of society."

Inspired by the LGBTQIA+ community flags, the Pride Month Digital Video Greeting features 11 different rainbows in colors that represent each individual group's flag. The copy reads: "There's nothing more powerful than choosing to be yourself." Then, the updated pride flag appears to represent the community groups united, with text that reads "Here's to being unapologetically you."

"The message of owning who you are and being unapologetically yourself is an important and powerful motto – uniqueness makes the world better and more interesting," Adams said.

Hallmark's product team engaged the Hallmark Employees Reaching Equality LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group (HERE ERG) to gather feedback throughout the design process. More than 20 HERE group members contributed invaluable input that led to the final design. Jessie Lueck, Chair of Hallmark's LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group, has served on the leadership team for five years and said the development of the Pride Month Digital Video Greeting is one of her proudest moments to date.

"It's really worth bragging about this success story because it shows how our product teams collaborate with our Employee Resource Groups for feedback," Lueck said. "This project started a conversation about the importance of nuance and deeper understanding when creating sentiments for the wide diverse needs of our LGBTQIA+ consumers so we can move beyond stereotypes and surface-level sentiments to authentic, meaningful messages."

For more information about Pride Month at Hallmark, please visit www.hallmark.com/lgbtqia, and click here to create your free Pride Month Digital Video Greeting today.

About Hallmark 
For more than 100 years, family-owned Hallmark Cards, Inc. has been dedicated to creating a more emotionally connected world. Headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri and employing 30,000 worldwide, the approximately $4 billion company operates a diversified portfolio of businesses. The Hallmark Global business sells greeting cards, gift wrap and related products in more than 30 languages with distribution in more than 100 countries and 100,000 rooftops worldwide, including about 2,000 Hallmark Gold Crown stores in five countries. Crayola® offers a wide range of art materials and creative play toys designed to spark children's creativity around the globe. Crown Media Family Networks operates three cable channels — Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, and Hallmark Drama — in addition to Hallmark Publishing, a leading publisher of uplifting eBooks, audiobooks and print editions, and Hallmark Movies Now, a subscription-based streaming service. Crown Center is a real estate development company that manages the 85-acre hotel, office, entertainment and residential campus surrounding Hallmark's headquarters. For more information, visit Hallmark.com. Connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn and YouTube.

SOURCE Hallmark Cards, Inc.