Going beyond credit cards: sponsorships and other services

The banking industry is known for its cold and sometimes unsexy brand image. In order to shatter this kind of brand image, Visa, Mastercard and American Express decides to promote new activities and to set up surprising sponsorships.

Visa & Sport 

Unlike its concurents, the brand decided to focus on on particuliar domain

“Visa is everywhere you want to be”
In fact, the company tried to have a closer to its clients brand image.
To do so, Visa strategically focused its sponsorships and partnership actions in sport.

Since 1986, Visa has sponsored the Olympic and Paralympic Games

Visa has also been one the FIFA World Cup sponsor since 2007 and until at least 2022. It enables the firm to be better exposed while sponsoring the world’s most followed sport. Besides, it also means that Visa has marketing rights relating to the two largest sporting events (the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup) 

MasterCard sponsors several sectors

Contrary to Visa, Mastercard has more diverse partnerships. Indeed the brand is present in sport, but also in fashion, and music.

Sport

MasterCard has been the official sponsor of the UEFA European Championships in 2008. The brand is also very present in the Golf field. Indeed, it is the initiative of several golf tournaments such as the MasterCard Open (from 2000 to 2004). Finally, Mastercard is also an official sponsor of the Major Baseball League.

Music

The brand distinguishes itself by being present in the entertainment domain. MasterCard is the main sponsor of the Brits Awards, which are the British Grammy Award equivalent.

Fashion

MasterCard is also sponsoring fashion events to improve its image. Sponsored events includes Fashion Rocks, MasterCard Luxury Week Hong Kong, Singapore Fashion Festival and Australian Fashion Week.

American Express gains exposure by supporting a lot of events

Just like MasterCard, Amex chose to have a presence in several domains including sport, music and press.

Sport

Amex is the main sponsor of both the NBA and the US open tennis tournament. Here the goal is to have a broader presence but also to offer its cardholder specific advantages. In fact, for the US open, Amex created “The US Open American Express® Fan Experience “. In this place, cardholder can for instance, play tennis and benefit from free swing analyses from tennis pros.

Music

Similarly, in 2010, Amex created Unstaged concert series in partnership with VEVO and YouTube available of its cardholders and music lovers.

According to the Sports and Entertainment Access Strategy American Express Vice President  “This new partnership with VEVO and YouTube not only celebrates the marriage of music and social media, but also demonstrates the exceptional access that American Express provides to Cardmembers and music lovers across the world,"

The concerts are broadcasted in live-streaming and enables interaction with the audience.

In fact, the audience can control its viewing experience by selecting one of the different cameras.

Finally, the artists can interact with the audience. During the Arcade fire concert, as the band was playing a song of their album called “The suburbs”, the audience submitted pictures of their own suburbs for them to be displayed on stage.

The concerts are broadcasted in live-streaming and enables interaction with the audience. In fact, the audience can control its viewing experience by selecting one of the different cameras.

Finally, the artists can interact with the audience. During the Arcade fire concert, as the band was playing a song of their album called “The suburbs”, the audience submitted pictures of their own suburbs for them to be displayed on stage.

Press

True its clients care commitment, Amex set up a press magazine called the “Centurion Magazine”. This magazine is dedicated to it super premium clients, the Centurion Card members. Focused on luxury, it covers subjects such as travel, culture, fashion and jewellery, art and gourmet trends. According to the brand, the Centurion Magazine is “the encyclopedia of luxury."

All in all, these 3 brands set up partnerships in order to improve their brand image. These actions help them being closer to their customers and also reaching other ones . 

We can also notice that Visa, MasterCard and American Express all positioned themselves in the sport area. By sponsoring these type of events, the 3 brands want people to  associate sport values to theirs. As a consequence, now they can be viewed as more trustful , fair and espaecially human brands




Sourceshttp://adage.com/article/news/american-express-renews-corporate-sponsorship-deal-nba/244042/http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6029533/amex-taps-maroon-5-for-live-streamed-concert-teams-with-itunes-radiohttps://whatson.bfi.org.uk/lff/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=amex-sponsorshiphttp://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2010/unstaged.aspxhttp://www.optimy.com/football-sponsorship-fifa-extends-sponsorship-visa/http://usa.visa.com/download/corporate/_media/fifa-media-kit/Sponsorship-Portfolio-Overview.pdfhttp://www.mastercard.com/us/company/en/whatwedo/current_sponsorships.html