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DETROIT — Avanti Press Inc. has unveiled its greeting card collection for 2013 and hired a new director of business development.
Introduced this month, the new greeting cards reflect Avanti’s leadership in the humor niche, with additions from both Avanti photographic and A*Press illustrated lines, the company said.
New offerings include numerous birthday card additions, including cards under the family birthday, belated birthday and birthday from all segments. Avanti said the A+Plus Motion series also features a new addition: a funny staging of four mop-topped owls rockin’ and rollin’ in lenticular black-and-white ("Happy Birthday, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!").
"Everything we do is geared toward making someone laugh when they walk by our display, which usually results in impulse purchases of more than one card," stated Avanti president and founder Rick Ruffner. "The key to our success is not only our knack for creating funny images, but pairing them with greetings that are sure to make both the purchaser and the recipient laugh. That’s a lot harder than it looks. We’ve found a way to give people a humor experience that ranges from a grin to a belly laugh that they can’t wait to share."
New characters joining the Avanti brand include a safe-cracking Boston terrier ("You’re just a couple of clicks past 30! Happy Birthday!"), a highway patrol toddler writing a ticket ("You have the right to remain in denial! Happy Birthday!"), and a smirking squirrel holding two walnuts ("Grab this year by the walnuts! Happy Birthday!").
The greeting card publisher noted that it also creates cards under its A*Press imprint, a graphic illustration line designed to be stylish and funny, with witty mash-ups of familiar objects and smart copy.
"We work really hard to create greeting cards that are universally relatable on a very personal level," Ruffner added. "We take funny very seriously."
On Friday, Avanti also announced that Kari Knowlton has joined the company as director of business development.
Knowlton brings to Avanti eight years of greeting card industry experience, starting at Marcel Schurman, later called Papyrus and renamed Papyrus-Recycled Greetings (PRG) after its acquisition in 2009 by American Greetings Corp. Most recently, she served as a director of business development at PRG.
"Kari has a strong track record of helping retailers achieve their sales goals with a branded, contemporary product strategy," commented Chip Owen, executive vice president at Avanti. "Kari’s talents are a nice fit for Avanti’s long-term plans for growth in the North American retail sector."
