American Greetings

Infobox Company
company_name = American Greetings
company_
company_slogan =
company_type = Public (nyse|AM)
genre =
foundation = 1906
founder = Jacob Sapirstein (1885-1987)
location = Cleveland, Ohio, USA
origins = Name changed in 1938 from the Sapirstein Greeting Card Company to American Greetings Publishers; went public in 1952.
key_people = Morry Weiss - Chairman; Zev Weiss - CEO & Director; Jeffrey M. Weiss - President, COO & Director
area_served =
industry = Greeting card publisher
products = Greeting cards, gift wrap, party goods, giftware, stationery, electronic greetings, calendars & educational products
revenue = $1.9 billion
operating_income =
net_income = $84.4 million
num_employees = 18,000
parent =
slogan = ...says it best
subsid =
owner =
homepage = [http://www.ag.com/ www.ag.com]
footnotes =

American Greetings Corporation, Inc. nyse|AM is the world's largest publicly-traded greeting card company. It is based in Cleveland, Ohio and sells paper greeting cards, electronic greeting cards, party products (such as wrapping papers and decorations), and electronic expressive content (e.g., ringtones and images for cellphones). In addition to the American Greetings brand, the company owns the Carlton Cards, Tender Thoughts and Gibson brands of greeting cards.

American Greetings is also famous for their toy design and licensing division, Those Characters From Cleveland (now American Greetings Properties). The most-popular copyrighted properties owned by this division include "Strawberry Shortcake", the "Care Bears", "The Get-Along Gang" and "Holly Hobbie". American Greetings also holds an exclusive license for Nickelodeon characters.

History

Founded in 1906 by Polish immigrant Jacob Sapirstein (1885-1987), who sold cards from a horse-drawn cart, American Greetings has been run by members of the family since its inception. Irving I. Stone (Sapirstein's oldest son, who changed his surname to Stone) was stuffing envelopes at age five, handling the business during his father's illness when he was nine, and worked for the company fulltime on leaving high school. He was succeeded as CEO by his son-in-law Morry Weiss in 1987, and took the title "Founder-Chairman" previously held by his father, when Weiss became chairman in 1992, before dying in 2000. In 2003 Morry Weiss's sons Zev and Jeffrey became CEO and President respectively; Morry Weiss remains Chairman. In early 2007, American Greetings replaced Kellogg's as the sponsor for "Dragon Tales".Fact|date=July 2007 American Greetings has also branched out onto the Internet, and owns a network of websites. On October 25, 2007, it announced the purchase of Webshots from CNET for $45 million in cash.

Licences

(Note: not all licenses are original creations by American Greetings. Some were licensed from third parties, where indicated)

*Care Bears
*Get-Along Gang
*Holly Hobbie (original)
*Holly Hobbie & Friends
*Lady Lovely Locks
*Madballs
*Mary Oku Yummy
*My Pet Monster
*Paintbox Studios
*Peppermint Rose
*Popples
*Pretty Freekin Scary
*Strawberry Shortcake
*Sugar Sonic
*Sushi Pack (created by Studio Espinosa and Cloudco [http://www.studioespinosa.com/workdetail.php?proid=57] )
*TinPo (created by UNKL [http://www.unklbrand.com/stories/tinpo/] )
*Twisted Whiskers

Cartoonists

* R. Crumb
* Peter Guren (Ask Shagg)

References

See also

*Cardmaking
*Carlton Cards - American Greetings' Canadian branch.
*Carlton Cards Retail - American Greetings' store management.

External links

* [http://www.americangreetings.com/ American Greetings]
* [http://www.agpbrands.com/ American Greetings Properties]