If Words Fail You, Their Cards Can Help

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A greeting card croons, "Love Me Tender." Another demands, "Kiss me, you fool." Still another croaks out a plain and simple, "I love you."

The talking cards are the invention of Janet and Bob Bearden, co-founders of Acard Co. Inc., designers of contemporary greeting cards and paper products in Laguna Niguel, Calif. The "voice" of the cards is activated by running a thumbnail, which acts like a phonograph needle, over a grooved plastic strip that contains a recorded message. Folded, the card acts as a speaker to project the voice on the tape.

The two entrepreneurs picked out the 16 best sellers from their line of 250 ordinary greeting cards and turned them into talkers. A first run of 200,000 cards, priced at $2 each, sold out in June and July. Acard's major customers are small independent retailers, but the Hallmark Stores, Bloomingdale's, and Marshall Field also carry the line. Janet Bearden says 1981 will be the four-year-old company's first million-dollar sales year.

The cards are being test marketed throughout the United States and in England and South Africa. The "Chitter Chatters," as the talkies are called, have been selling to everybody, says Janet Bearden, "from little kids on up to 80-year-olds. We're not really geared to any specific audience, but you do have to have a certain sense of humor to appreciate them."