Ce-UnPac’d Special : Hallmark – The Red Postbox And The Red Flags Core

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Don’t call it a comeback, we’ll be here for years!

Hallmark sells comfort like it’s oxygen. Cards that weaponise glitter. Christmas films where the biggest emergency is a misunderstood casserole. A brand built on warmth, reassurance, and the soft-focus lie that everything ends in a hug.
But the public record keeps coughing up the opposite. Lawsuits. Allegations. Reversals. A corporate smile stapled to the face while the room smells faintly of panic.

For the record, we allege no link whatsoever to Cummins in this piece. None. Zip. Nada.

Ce-UnPac’d Slipped Back Onto The Counter

Ce-UnPac’d has been quiet for a while. Not dead. Not abandoned. Just sat there like a knife you keep meaning to put away properly.

Then the kind of procedural writing that turns your stomach showed up again. You know the type. Polite on the surface, designed to drain you underneath. Not a threat in bold caps, just a slow squeeze wrapped in “reasonableness”.

And it reminded me why this series exists.

Not because we are “out for” anyone. Not because this is some vendetta hobby. But because shiny brands thrive on people staying too tired to look closely. They count on the public preferring the wrapper to the contents.

So yes. We are looking again. We could write 130 pages on this, but we’ll just stick to this article for now.

The Red Postbox Cameo

Let’s keep this bit clean and verifiable.

In 2020, Cepac Display in Doncaster built an in-store display for Hallmark that mimicked a British red postbox for an M&S campaign. Christmas cards and wrap. Peak retail nostalgia. It won Gold at the POPAI Awards in the Short Run Temporary Display category.

POPAI shortlist documentation also lists the entry as a Hallmark Cards M&S Postbox, with Hallmark Cards shown as the client.

Two clarifications, because facts matter.

  • This shows Hallmark commissioning work that ended up inside M&S stores.
  • It does not automatically prove Cepac is a direct contracted supplier to M&S procurement.

So yes, Hallmark has a neat little UK footprint. A tidy receipt. A clean cameo. The sort of thing that looks great in a case study and even better in a press photo.

Now let’s talk about the mess that does not photograph as well.

Comfort As A Product, Virtue As A Costume

Hallmark does not just sell entertainment. It sells reassurance.

It sells the idea that the world is safe if you buy the right card and believe hard enough. That conflict is temporary, cruelty is accidental, and everyone ends up redeemed by cinnamon and a choir.

That is why its controversies land so hard.

When you build your empire on moral comfort, you do not get to act shocked when people judge you by the standard you marketed. You printed it on the box. You piped it into living rooms with a jingle and a wink.

The Zola U-Turn

In December 2019, Hallmark pulled Zola adverts featuring a same-sex couple kissing after pressure from a conservative group. Backlash hit hard and fast. Hallmark reversed course and reinstated the ads.

That whole sequence is the brand in miniature.

  • Fold
  • Flinch
  • Apologise
  • Pretend you were always fine with it

Call it brand management. Call it cowardice. Either way it is not “values”. It is a weather vane bolted to a balance sheet. Values aren’t a feature here, just whatever is trendy at the time. They’re absent. Until they next issue to pretend virtue signal over arrrives.

Inclusion When It’s Convenient

Over the years, there has been repeated criticism and reporting about Hallmark’s slow movement on diversity and LGBTQ+ inclusion.

Actor Hilarie Burton said publicly she was let go after pushing for more inclusive casting and LGBTQ+ representation. Hallmark disputed aspects around her work on a project. The point here is not to litigate every detail in a blog post. The point is that the Hallmark image keeps colliding with accounts that describe a very different internal instinct.

There have also been reports of allegations from crew and extras about interracial representation choices on specific productions, with Hallmark denying any policy. Again, the denial sits on the record. So do the allegations. And the atmosphere they describe is not the one Hallmark sells.

Hallmark does inclusion like garnish. A sprinkle. Something you can scrape off when the wrong audience starts shouting.

Home And Family With Lawyers In The Kitchen

Then there is the “Home & Family” mess. Not the on-screen cosy version. The lawsuits.

There has been reporting on claims involving producer Woody Fraser, including allegations of harassment and retaliation connected to complaints. There was further legal action from former host Mark Steines alleging wrongful termination tied to those circumstances. Crown Media disputed the claims at the time.

Read that again. Slowly.

A brand that sells “home” as sanctuary ends up surrounded by allegations that the workplace behind a show branded as “Home & Family” was toxic. That is not irony. That is rot with frosting.

Age And Disability Claims, And Why They Always Matter

Disability discrimination is not a theoretical argument over here. It is the kind of thing that follows people into every corridor, every appointment, every “process” dressed up as fairness.

So when a comfort brand gets hit with age and disability discrimination allegations, it matters. Not because Hallmark is uniquely monstrous. Because the story is familiar across industries. Smile on the brochure. Coldness in the system.

In 2024, casting director Penny Perry filed a lawsuit alleging age and disability discrimination against Hallmark Media. Hallmark denied the allegations. These companies often do. We wonder if she was met with legal aggression. After all, it’s theoretically a viable strategy against someone fighting bigger problems – their health. I don’t allege that’s what happened, but it’s something I’ve experienced personally.

But the hypocrisy gap is still the story. Hallmark sells safety and kindness as a product. Allegations like these describe the opposite. When the wrapper is your business, every tear shows. Allegations that are not the Hallmark of good practice. (Sorry).

The Wrapper Problem

Hallmark’s machine runs on polish. That means when scandal threatens the shine, the response is rarely moral. It is usually defensive. Surgical. Containment.

That does not make Hallmark special. It makes it corporate.

What makes it worth unpacking is the costume. The soft voice. The moral branding. The constant request to be trusted.

Because the public record keeps offering reasons to hesitate.

Wrapping It Up

Hallmark got its gold postbox moment. Lovely. A clean UK cameo. A neat little ecosystem handshake.

Then you look at the controversies, the reversals, the lawsuits, the allegations, and you start to see the pattern. The brand sells tenderness. The record keeps hinting at something colder underneath.

Ce-UnPac’d is just one arm of our corporate accountability mission. It exists because shiny wrappers keep getting treated like character references. They are not.

It was considered dormant. But sometimes, powers we can’t control can spur an eruption.

TCAP does not get tired.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Sources

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