At Dunkin' Donuts with my 18-year-old daughter last week, she noticed gift cards with personalized photos and remarked, "That's cute." It is, and it's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to
marketers' efforts to make gift cards more appealing. This year, they record messages, light up, smell like gingerbread, can be texted and posted on Facebook and come with little holes for a finger
puppet.
Yet, only 13% of those responding to a
Consumer Reports survey put gift cards at the top of their wish lists, although 62% said they plan to buy them.
Enter, stage
left: Companies trying to make gift cards more useful and take a piece of their value by offering to buy, sell and trade them.
Read the whole story at New York Times »