It’s a day ending in Y which means that Blackhawk Network (BHN) is continuing to have an identity crisis about its lineup of multi-store gift cards and is rebranding them once again.
As a quick recap, BHN launched Happy gift cards several years ago. These are gift cards that can only be used at retailers listed on the cards. There were various different brands of Happy gift cards, with BHN adding and removing cards from its lineup as time went on. Initially these cards could only be redeemed in store, but over time several brands became “swap” cards that could be redeemed online for gift cards for the eligible retailers and restaurants.
At some point they seemed to decide that having a range of Happy gift cards wasn’t sufficient, so they launched Giving Good gift cards. Those work in a similar way, but 3% of the sales price goes towards the charity listed on the card (e.g. Habitat for Humanity, St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, etc.).
As if that wasn’t enough, they then launched Choice gift cards. The concept was identical to Happy and Giving Good, but just different branding and an even wider array of Choice brands. They started retiring more Happy brands and launched new Choice brands and so it seemed like Happy cards would be going away, but there are still some brands that are alive and kicking gently flailing their feet.
Throughout all this time, Happy, Choice and Giving Good gift cards took the “swap” element literally as eligible retailers and restaurants would frequently be changed. Sometimes this was due to companies going out of business, but other times the reason was who knows.
In true As Seen On TV style – BUT THAT’S NOT ALL! They’ve since launched One4All gift cards. There were two versions of this card; one is a physical card that can only be redeemed in-store at eligible retailers and restaurants. The other is a physical and digital card that gets redeemed online for gift cards of eligible brands.
Blackhawk Network has decided that all these multi-store gift cards weren’t confusing enough, so they’d like to add even more confusion into the mix. It looks like they’re now in the process of rebranding Choice gift cards as One4All gift cards (see the screenshot above). That screenshot is from the HappyCards.com website which shows how nuts this all is. For starters, the website is HappyCards.com. Then the headline is HAPPY CARDS which would, in a normal world, mean the website is for Happy gift cards. However, below that they show brands that have been branded as Choice for the last year or two, but which now have One4All listed on them. The HappyCards.com website then doesn’t list any Happy gift cards whatsoever, although they can still be purchased from some other retailers (e.g. Amazon).
That means that now there are One4All gift cards that can only be used at a handful of retailers depending on the brand, but there are also a couple of One4All brands that can be redeemed at a much wider range of retailers.
It gets even better though. If you Google “One4All gift cards”, the first non-sponsored result is One4All.com which is listed as “One4all Multi-Store Gift Cards”. That sounds like it could be a useful resource for checking out all the brands, particularly for people who are unfamiliar with how One4All gift cards work. Unfortunately that website is for the UK version of One4All cards; the US version is One4AllCard.com.
So as a recap:
- There are Happy cards which are neglected and may or may not be retired in the coming year or which may or may not be rebranded as One4All
- There are Choice gift cards being rebranded as One4All
- There are One4All gift cards that are like Happy and Choice gift cards and One4All cards that are like the One4All gift cards that were originally launched a year ago or so. There are also One4All gift cards that aren’t like One4All gift cards in the US
- New One4All brands will be added and retired at random and eligible retailers will come and go depending on what sides two 16-sided dice land on and then what shape appears in the tea leaves at the bottom of a cup of tea
- Once you’ve gotten used to these changes, One4All cards will be rebranded as something else, most likely as something which already has a web presence and so will be confusing when trying to find out information about it
- I predict that this will then come full cycle and all the cards will be rebranded as Happy Cards, but they’ll take down the HappyCards website and then list information about them on One4AllAndAll4OneChoicesAreGivingGoodVibes.com
All right, since nobody else has posted — I will admit that I fell out of my chair laughing after reading the recap.
Thanks! I’m glad it entertained 🙂