CLEVELAND, Feb. 13, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- American Greetings Corporation (NYSE: AM) the creator and manufacturer of innovative social expression products for more than 100 years, today announced that Mullen has been selected as the Company's agency of record for full service advertising responsibilities—creative, digital, and media planning/buying. Mullen will work with American Greetings to develop marketing strategies for its paper and digital greetings businesses.

American Greetings began a national search for an advertising agency partner in November 2012; the search was handled by Roth Associates. The company narrowed the selection to four finalists, from which the agency of record was chosen. Mullen was chosen based on its capabilities to grow with American Greetings' marketing and business needs.

"We selected Mullen for its breadth of experience and approach to helping us meet consumer needs," said Alex Ho, executive director of marketing at American Greetings. "Identifying a strong agency partner is significantly important to our leadership team and our business. We're very excited to begin working with Mullen, and look forward to the partnership."

"Innovative, creative, digitally-driven, smart, nice people who want to do fresh new work - American Greetings is an ideal partner for Mullen," said Alex Leikikh, president of Mullen's Boston office. "We feel like we've landed on a big creative idea that, coupled with the power of our strategic and multi-channel media capabilities, can make a huge impact on American Greetings and all of its amazing brands."

About American Greetings Corporation

For more than 100 years, American Greetings Corporation (NYSE: AM) has been a creator and manufacturer of innovative social expression products that assist consumers in enhancing their relationships to create happiness, laughter and love.  The Company's major greeting card lines are American Greetings, Carlton Cards, Gibson, Recycled Paper Greetings and Papyrus, and other paper product offerings include DesignWare party goods and American Greetings and Plus Mark gift-wrap and boxed cards.  American Greetings also has one of the largest collections of greetings on the Web, including greeting cards available at Cardstore.com and electronic greeting cards available at AmericanGreetings.com.  In addition to its product lines, American Greetings also creates and licenses popular character brands through the American Greetings Properties group.  Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, American Greetings generates annual revenue of approximately $1.7 billion, and its products can be found in retail outlets worldwide.  For more information on the Company, visit http://corporate.americangreetings.com.

About Mullen

Mullen is a "hyperbundled" agency, integrating disciplines from creative to digital marketing, media planning and buying, mobile marketing, public relations and social influence, design, CRM and performance analytics. Mullen specializes in working with thought leader brands, including Google, JetBlue, U.S. Cellular, Zappos, FAGE and iRobot. Mullen has been named to the Advertising Age Agency A-List and as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies. The agency is headquartered in Boston and is an independent brand within the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE:IPG). For more on Mullen, please visit www.mullen.com, twitter.com/mullenunbound or facebook.com/mullenunbound.

SOURCE American Greetings Corporation