CorpComms Magazine

It is the job nobody wants. It is viewed as the corporate poisoned chalice. But it is probably the one task throughout the year that the chairman pays an inordinate amount of attention to. Yes, it's time to choose the corporate Christmas card. 

Actually, the reality is that by now most organisations will have selected the design of their company Christmas card. The process probably started in the spring and now, after countless committee meetings, all that is left to do is to draw up lists of recipients, print out labels and somehow get staff to sign the darn things. 

As one weary media relations director explains: 'Everybody likes the idea in practice, but nobody agrees on the design. Nobody agrees on what the message should be. Nobody agrees on whose responsibility it is. And then nobody wants to write them.' 

Another adds: 'One year the marketing department will take responsibility. The next year, they've learned their lesson and it goes to the press office. The following year it gets shunted onto the advertising department, and eventually the events people find that it's their turn. It's a nightmare.' 

The problem is, as President George W Bush discovered last year, the corporate Christmas card can sometimes send the wrong message. His missive to 1.4 mn of his closest friends and supporters featured the presidential pets - two dogs and a cat - frolicking on a snowy White House lawn and wished recipients a happy 'holiday season'. 

The card infuriated religious conservatives because it made no mention of Christmas. Susan Whitson, press secretary for Laura Bush, explains that while the First Family personally celebrates Christmas, the cards 'are sent to people of all faiths'.

Image conscious

It is a dilemma recognised by most organisations, particularly multinational ones. A former press officer at a US investment bank explains: 'A global organisation has to have a completely secular design on the card. It must appeal to all recipients and, while it is manifestly a Christmas card, it can have no imagery related to Christmas. 

'Winter imagery is popular because it conveys a festive spirit, but the card cannot contain any Christmas wishes. 'Seasons greetings', or 'happy holidays' in the US, is popular.' Indeed, the last US president who dared to include the words 'happy Christmas' in his official card was George HW Bush, way back in 1992. 

'They can't be religious. They can't be humorous. They can't be self-deprecating. They can't mock anybody,' says one tired corporate Christmas card organiser, rattling off a list of 'no-gos'. Peter Baillie, director of corporate communications at GKN, says: 'Experience has taught me that the corporate Christmas card is not something that you should ever volunteer to get involved in. In the context of company business, it is so unimportant. It is also so subjective that you can end up spending an inordinate amount of time on something that does not generate any value.' 

GKN allows departments to send their own corporate Christmas cards. 'The last thing a progressive company wants or needs is a Christmas card policy,' says Baillie. 'They cost tens of thousands of pounds and all have to be sent first-class because nobody ever remembers to send them on time,' says one multinational executive tasked with organising the corporate Christmas card. 'And then, to cap it all, every year you are told to keep the costs down yet produce cards of extremely high quality that look very expensive. Imagine the horror if your nearest rival sent a better card than you? Or even worse, the same one?' 

He adds: 'Don't ever be fobbed off with the choice of the designer. They will be offering the same design to every other company that uses them. Some companies like to incorporate their logo, but I cannot tell you how many difficulties I had trying to transform my company's logo into a snowflake!' 

National newspapers have even been known to run competitions forthe worst corporate Christmas card, or the tackiest and most inappropriate use of the company logo. 

Faith and charity

Sentiments like these are music to the ears of homeless charity Crisis. It recently commissioned a survey that revealed 42 percent of recipients did not even recognise who had sent the cards to them. This lacklustre response will hardly please the 49 percent of executives who consider the organising and sending of corporate Christmas cards to be too time-consuming, or the one in four who described the whole process as 'stressful'. 

The Crisis survey also found that 56 percent of recipients would not be upset if they did not receive paper-based Christmas cards, while 75 percent of companies found that the traditional corporate Christmas card offers mediocre, poor or zero return on investment. 

Crisis has just launched the eleventh Christmas Card Challenge, which invites businesses to stop sending traditional Christmas cards this year and instead use the money to help make a difference to the lives of homeless people. 

Crisis estimates that each of the 117 medium-sized companies it surveyed sent an average of 1,379 cards last year at a cost of £1,080, adding up to more than £125,000. 

The charity invites companies to sign up to the challenge as part of their corporate social responsibility programme or by donating their Christmas card budget. In return, the company will receive space in two double-page adverts in the Financial Times and on FT.com, plus an animated e-card to send to their clients. 

The e-cards, which can be a generic or personalised design, will be sufficiently neutral that they are not restricted by company firewalls. 

Barclays is among the many companies that have already signed up to the challenge, which this year has a target of £800,000. 

Debbie Phillips, senior community manager at Barclays, says it is almost impossible to calculate what the bank's Christmas card bill was before it stopped sending them out. But Barclays, Britain's fourth-largest high street bank, employs 64,000 staff, and if just one quarter of those sent ten cards each, using Crisis figures, the bill would exceed £12,000. 

'We have worked with Crisis for ten years,' explains Phillips. 'Five years ago Barclays did send some cards out, but now we don't send any at all. People are conscious of the money spent on corporate Christmas cards and the impact that they have on the environment.' 

Barclays designs a branded e-card with Crisis that is then available on the intranet for staff to download and send to clients, but also to colleagues. 'We work carefully with Crisis and we choose a message like 'season's greetings' as opposed to 'merry Christmas' because it is much more inclusive,' explains Phillips. 

'The e-cards are a better fit with our environmental thinking. We have not had anybody complaining about them.' Indeed, according to Crisis, 71 percent of execs think the money spent on cards would be better spent on charity. 

The Woodland Trust offers companies the chance to sponsor or name a tree with the money normally spent on Christmas cards, and an e-card option. But, if they still cling to their old-fashioned ways, it operates a Christmas card recycling scheme for the recipients in association with WH Smith and Tesco. Last year 82 mn of the 1.8 bn cards sent in the UK were recycled on behalf of the Woodland Trust.

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