MASTERCARD

Digital Media Assignment

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Submitted by-
Aastha Agarwal
TYBMM AD-A
ROLL: 54
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Overview and Brand Strategy

MasterCard is a technology company in the global payments industry that connects

consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses worldwide, and
enabling them to use electronic forms of payment instead of cash and cheque.
MasterCard range of products includes MasterCard®, Maestro® and Cirrus®.
MasterCard (2014).

Mastercard, originally known as "Interbank" from 1966 to 1969 and "Master Charge" from
1969 to 1979,[4] was created by an alliance of several regional bankcard associations in
response to the BankAmericard issued by Bank of America, which later became the Visa
credit card issued by Visa Inc.

Mastercard is an active advertiser in the Indian market and focuses on reiterating its
credibility to the consumers. Interestingly, the brand directly works with banks and not with
consumers, however on the back of its consumer-centric and clutter breaking advertising,
Mastercard is seen as a consumer brand.

India is fast moving towards being a cashless economy and Mastercard aims to be a
partner in this journey. Earlier this year, on the back of demonetisation and a move
towards digital transactions, Mastercard announced to have invested about Rs 6,500 crore
between 2014 and 2019 in India.

The brand has expressed its complete commitment to government initiatives like Make in
India, Digital India and Skill India. It also expressed its commitment towards local investment
models, charging minimally on debit card transactions and ATM withdrawals, helping to
convert cash to digital transactions.

India is the world’s second most populous nation and the numbers itself present a huge
opportunity for Mastercard. As per a published report, Mastercard estimated a total of 60
million merchants in India and only 1.4 million point-of-sale terminals that accept digital
payments. The brand aims to double these terminals in the coming days.
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One of the keys to the Mastercard’s success in India is - All product development starts with
consumer insights at its core. There are some universal truths, and there are some subtle
truths. These subtle truths will be highly culture dependent.

Mastercard has been present since 1984 in India and the company is now working with all
state governments on diverse strategies in helping the businesses grow and developing a
cutting-edge payments system. It caters the needs of consumers, business, governments
and public sector, merchants, issuers and other partners. The exponential rise in mobile
penetration in India is also seen as the key to get the users' access to digital payment
innovations.

Previous Campaigns

Mastercard in India, launched ‘KhulGayiLife’, a campaign aimed at accelerating the

country's ongoing shift from cash to digital payments. It strengthens the company’s digital
payments efforts in the metros along with tier 2 and tier 3 cities. The campaign showcases
the convenience of using digital transactions across internet banking, mobile wallets, debit
cards, mobile and QR codes and for everyday uses such as tolls and transits, for utility bills,
grocery, fuel, among others.

In 2017, the brand launched a campaign Cashless Bano India with a popular broadcaster to
create digital awareness and educate the masses about digital payment solutions for day-
to-day transactions.

Digital Rath was another such initiative in partnership with Confederation of All India
Traders (CAIT) aiming to support the government’s agenda towards creating a cashless
economy. The campaign was rolled out across Delhi, Lucknow, Gwalior, Jhansi, Kanpur,
Kolkata, Puducherry, Nagpur, Bhopal, Pune, and Navi Mumbai to build awareness as well
as drive prevalence and acceptance of digital payments among approximately 10 lakh
merchants.

Despite the campaign’s enduring success, nearly three years ago Mastercard re-examined
its marketing strategy to ensure it was still resonating with consumers whose focus had
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shifted from traditional media to mobile devices.

As a result, Mastercard shifted from storytelling to “story making,” collaborating with

consumers to make them part of the narrative. The company narrowed its
many Priceless campaigns down to four categories: Priceless Surprises, which gives
cardholders unexpected experiences, such as meeting celebrities; Priceless Cities, which
curates one-of-a-kind experiences and exclusive promotions only available to Mastercard
cardholders; Priceless Causes, which generates donations to particular charities when
consumers use their Mastercards; and Priceless Specials, which provides various offers and
benefits. The brand believes that consumers don’t want to hear brand stories but want to
be a part of the story, so we have shifted from storytelling to story-making. The brand has
categorized our consumers’ common interests into nine different categories, namely,
shopping, sports, entertainment, culinary experiences, travel, philanthropy, music, arts and
culture, and environment. The new campaigns have also been successful for the brand.

The campaign that stood out: “Priceless”

Mastercard's current advertising campaign tagline is "Priceless". The slogan associated with
the campaign is "There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's
Mastercard." The Priceless campaign in more recent iterations has been applicable to both
Mastercard's credit card and debit card products. They also use the Priceless description to
promote products such as their "priceless travel" site which features deals and offers for
Mastercard holders, and "priceless cities", offers for people in specified locations.
The first of these Priceless ads were run during the 1997 World Series and there are
numerous different TV, radio and print ads.[57] Mastercard registered Priceless as a
trademark.

The purpose of the campaign is to position Mastercard as a friendly credit card company
with a sense of humour, as well as responding to the public's worry that everything is being
commodified and that people are becoming too materialistic.
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What worked for them?

The best thing about this whole campaign is the experential approach in the ads. Like other
banking brands, Mastercard did not take the straight forward, serious tone route to
advertise its product and services. As mentioned above, the ads have a humorous and
emotional overtone to it. They way Mastercard could appeal to consumers’ emotions is the
best example of hitting the right chords.

The copy used in the digital ads is short and simple yet very effective and uses just the right
amount of words needed to move an audience.

Another reason for the huge success of this campaign was the kind of brand attitude it
built among its target audience.

Also, consistency in the theme across all the media platforms is another plus point for the
campaign’s success.
Priceless is not just about what they are communicating to the consumer but it is actually
an engagement platform. Mastercard infuses Priceless into everything they do as a
company.

What went/can go wrong?

MasterCard's “Priceless" campaign has been active since 1997, making viewers laugh and
smile at moments everyone can consider priceless. While the campaign has brought the
company much success in the past, a concern exists that the concept may have lost some
of the novelty and uniqueness it once had over a decade ago. The main issue at hand is
whether or not “Priceless” can be revamped and presented at a different angle or if the
company needs an entirely new direction for its creative concept.

SEO Rankings

Keywords Average Monthly Searches

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Cashless 1K-10K

Atm pin 1K-10K

Consumer 10K-100K

Swipe 10K-100K

Priceless 1K-10K

Online payment 10K-100K

Electronic 10K-100K

Credit card 100K-1M

Online banking 10K-100K

Digital India 100K-1M

Content marketing v/s product marketing

Both content marketing and product markering has played equally important role in
building Mastercard into what it is today.

I. Content Marketing
When MasterCard’s VP of global digital marketing Adam Broitman joined
MasterCard, he told his team to ditch the marketing aspect and focus on the
content and since they are doing wonders in content marketing.

Mastercard believes that content creation has shifted from a nice-to-have to a must-
have for large financial brands.

MasterCard’s content strategy began with listening because being a great storyteller
means telling the stories that people want to hear. The company discovered people
on Twitter and Facebook were sharing reasons why they love a particular city and
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using the hashtag #lovethiscity. MasterCard decided to join the conversation, and
the following is the first post the company made:

Other ads include:

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Mastercard believes in the power of social media as it is an important channel to

increase brand recognition and improve brand loyalty. The brand uses an integrated
approach that leverages all digital platforms as well as non-digital platforms to
deliver one consistent message. This is done using a combination of content themes
and formats, each best suited for their respective platform. It uses Twitter to build
thought leadership around the brand and Facebook to engage consumers.

But Mastercard isn’t focusing exclusively on the mass consumer market, it’s aiming
for business customers too. And while some other brands are tilting towards
magazine or service-type articles, Mastercard is also pushing audio, including
podcasts, and video.

II. Product marketing

Mastercard is involved in various social activities, endorsements and sponsorships
to maintain its image, create brand awareness and promote itself amongst the
customers. It has targeted social, governance and environmental factors for social
sustainability.

Mastercard sponsors major sporting events throughout the world like UEFA
Champions League, Canadian Hockey League, Formula One racing, etc.

The promotional strategy in the marketing mix of Mastercard focuses on brand

awareness through all kinds of media and marketing activities. For the new
generation it has launched its Contactless card.

It has also signed a partnership with Skotch group to deal with the socio-economic
issues, ‘Smart India, Shrestha Bharat – from promises to delivery’.

One of the first big successes was in India where it ran a cinema promotion around
the film Mary Kom. Mastercard went to the distributor, and in return for being
allowed to use assets from the film, offered promotions on cinema tickets towards
the end of the film’s run- when audiences typically start to peter out.

Not only did all the tickets sell out, but it actually earned revenue for Mastercard as
well. The tests were so successful that Mastercard has run its first real-time
campaign in Europe around the UEFA Champions League final and is planning to roll
the model out globally.
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Campaign ideas for April

Communication:-
CAMPAIGN NAME: #PricelessEurope

CONCEPT NOTE, CAMPAING GOALS AND KEY MESSAGE:

Concept Note:

As a traveller, the public generally seeks out experiences across a country before narrowing
down to one region.

To highlight Mastercard as a bearer of priceless experiences and how it can make your
dream trip to Europe come true we shall lead our communication with the Mastercard-
Europe tourism programme. We shall encourage customers to use Mastercard and explore
the vibrant & exciting continent of Europe.

This shall be done through a storytelling format which flows on to their travel story to
Europe with Mastercard.

Right from the microsite to social media, audiences shall be invited to create their
plan/story and share it with the world to win the trip for free.

Influencers shall be leveraged to show them an example of how this story can come to life
starting with Mastercard

The idea:

Mastercard gives priceless experiences to its customers. Now, they’re going the extra
“smile” to bring priceless Europe to the people of India by leveraging them into playing a
contest online and standing a chance to win discounts and offers on their tour package
booked using Mastercard.
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How is this done?

A UGC-driven, engagement idea that would ask people to take us through about everything
that would interest them with a travel story, across Europe. Customers can use a portal to
create their masterpiece. One lucky winner will see his/her story become a reality with an
all-expense paid trip to Europe.

Launch Phase:

For the launch, influencers (Bruised Passports, Siddharta Joshi) and our campaign creatives
(Banners, Posts, Terribly Tiny Tales, Scoop Whoop, etc.) would break simultaneously driving
traffic to the microsite. Audiences will be given a chance to suggest or create the travel
plans of the influencers. The microsite will act as an anchor to users, where information on
Europe will be available (the story template would educate them while they interact with it).

Influencers: They will create their own story to Europe, and create buzz by showing it to
their followers over Instagram, Twitter, YouTube.

The microsite: Users can use our microsite to create their tale using a story template. The
microsite will help them select the places they want to see & what they want to do there,
basis their interests (Adventure, Food, history, art, music, culture, festivities, etc.). They
must create a travel story, we will provide suggestions around their interests.

Social Media: A sharable version of their story (PDF/Flash playbook/GIF/Video) will be

created which can ultimately be posted on social media by users. It also acts as their entry
to win a trip to Europe and make their story a reality.

YouTube: We’ll create a pre-roll ad to invite audiences to create their Europe travel story
and win a free trip to the region by participating in the contest.
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Post launch Phase:

We amplify the contest winners and their journey on social media. We engage with
travellers who are currently travelling to Europe inviting them to our microsite. They can
use our hashtag to interact with us and share their journey to win Mastercard
merchandise, discounts on further payments done with their card, etc hence making our
microsite/social pages a repository of content on Europe.

Striking a balance between product marketing and content marketing:-

As much as quality and quanitity of content marketing is important for any company, it is
equally important to make sure its product is marketed well. Thus, keeping a balance
between the both is very important.

Mastercard through #PricelessEurope will not only sough to target content marketing at its
best through building a microsite and and using influencers and posting on various
different social media platforms as explained above but will also make sure to keep up its
product marketing.

#PricelessEurope will be a month long campaign. The main aim shall be to generate
maximum number of transactions with Mastercard in booking the trip to Europe and then
throughout the tour in the following ways:

1. Providing discounts on travel bookings.

2. Providing offers and incentives on complete tour package bookings.
3. Tieing up with various merchants in Europe and asking customers to make
purchases/bookings with them using Mastercard in order to enjoy discounts.
4. Attracting the potential customers and turning them into consumers thorugh these
offers.
5. Ultimately, positioning the brand as an experience provider.