Pizzaro was in town to discuss the emerging opportunities in the Indian market with AG's liscensee Archies Greetings & Gifts Ltd. Of the 6,000 designs Archies introduce every year, around half are supplied by AG.Being in the `social expressions products' market, the $ 2.2 billion AG remains focussed on understanding the change in culture and societal needs.

``Our products address the situations emerging out of a rise in the number of divorced couples and children being raised by single parents,'' said Pizarro. ``As society changes, we have to change ourselves too.''

AG produces 25,000 new designs every year which are subjected to extensive test marketing through a chain of 400 AG-owned corporate storeslocated in big malls in the US. AG commissions a phenomenal 10,000 surveys a year involving households to gather data like: the number of cards received and sent by various members of the household; and the profile of cards in terms of the messages they carry (Happy Birthday versus Get Well Soon).

Pizarro said that AG was shortly developing a software to address the requirements of the e-generation. He felt that far from threatening the greeting cards and gifts business, the Internet would in fact complement it via e-commerce. He held that the concept of e-greetings can't replace a cherished tradition. ``To my wife I better give greeting cards,'' he says. ``Greeting cards are a tradition.''

Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, AG is the world's largest publicly-owned creator, manufacturer and distributor of social expression products.