Great work Visa, now I hate you • Hacker News Board

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#41

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:16 PM UTC

It's more than just Visa -- this is the marketing arrangement for (AFAIK) ALL Olympic sponsors.

The marketing agreement with the IOS is:

- You get your brand prominently featured across venues, media feeds, and collateral.

- All competitors are iced out.

I'm OK with the first.

I'm not OK with the latter.

Particularly in light of the Orwellian trademark and copyright enforcement (including significant changes to corresponding statutes) the IOC is granted.

That and the fact that Olympic athletes are no longer amateurs, but professionals. It's a charade. An impressive one at times, but a charade all the same.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#42

Post by switch007 » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:17 PM UTC

It's hard to avoid Visa now in the UK. I don't think any banks issue new Maestro debit cards any more - they're all VISA.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#43

Post by ewood » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:18 PM UTC

Maybe it is a unique marker of those who are technically minded to be especially aggrieved by an arbitrary restriction such as this? Going through the London2012 ticket website today I noticed the requirement to pay by Visa and even though I was intending on using my Visa I clicked on the "What if I don't have Visa?" link to see what alternatives were on offer:

If you do not have a Visa card, your bank will be able to help you select and apply for the Visa product that best suits your needs. For more information on how to obtain a Visa product, please visit the Visa website.

Do they seriously think I'm going to organise a new card just to buy Olympic products? A better piece of advice might be:

If you do not have a Visa card, find a friend who does and get them to buy the tickets for you. Then settle with cash and buy them a beer for their trouble.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#44

Post by vitalique » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

shtylman wrote: post #9

You hate them and yet will probably change nothing in your usage habits regarding their cards or make an effort to support systems that are not visa?

It seems to me that, regardless of what blogpost author is going (or not going) to do, we can draw a lesson or two here for our own products/services: take away freedom of choice from your customer, and he may quickly become a pissed off and lost customer to you. You have to be very careful in estimations of potential profits and losses of your marketing efforts. Customers may not care (nor should they, actually) about your business or marketing strategies. (Though I'm absolutely sure that Visa is benefiting a lot right now and will not suffer any long-term losses because of this campaign.)

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#45

Post by icefox » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:19 PM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #17

jonknee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Needless to say they lost the sale. How many other sales did they lose I wonder? Surely not enough to cover the massive amount of money Visa paid to be an exclusive sponsor. In London this year that is reportedly over $100M and during the first week Visa racked up $700 million worth of charges at the games.

Interesting. What you're implying is that the marketing benefits of Visa become a sponsor are secondary to the direct revenue it generates at the event. This could be the most profitable marketing spend with the quickest ROI ever.

"$700 million worth of charges" Visa only gets 2-5% of the charge. Lets assume on the high end at 5% we are talking about only 35 million in income. Even doubling that for the second week we get 70 million (before costs). How is that the quickest ROI ever? Sounds like a bad marketing move backed up by a loss of profits. Maybe the real winners were the olympic committee or the other credit card companies that bid up the price against Visa.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#46

Post by thetrb » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:20 PM UTC

I think this is a valid complaint, but it's nothing new.

Same thing happened to me when I tried to buy Tickets for the NFL. They also only accepted Visa at that time (not sure if it changed since then). I wasn't able to buy Tickets online because of that reason so I looked up the next brick & mortar store which sold these tickets and found that Macy's sells them (at a special counter).

So I drove to Macy's thinking that at least they should accept any credit card - but nope, they rejected my Mastercard so I first had to get cash at an ATM.

I think Visa's point is that you feel limited by not having a Visa card and so are more willing to get a Visa. In my opinion that's kind of similar to how advertisement works in general. You don't see a commercial and immediately go to buy it, but they try to build the sense in you that you actually need the product.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#47

Post by kaybe » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:20 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #29

haeikou wrote: post #8

So I'm European and everything, and not so much used to credit cards everywhere ... but is it really so hard to pay cash for a day?

Not really, but you have to estimate how much cash you'll need. You also run the risk of that cash being stolen.

It won't go bad after this day.. (but theft is a valid point)

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#48

Post by bencoder » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:20 PM UTC

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #38

tonfa wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/Europe/??/ (Germany?) I know at least a couple of European countries where debit/credit cards are prevalent.

Like the United Kingdom, which is hosting the Olympic games...

Compared to some European countries, the UK is far behind. Many of the smaller retailers and pubs/bars still don't accept card or require minimum spends (£5 or £10) to be able to use cards.

In Finland it seems that absolutely everywhere accepts card and cash is very rare. I'd guess at least 95% of the in-person transactions that I see are made with card. Even for the smallest amounts.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#49

Post by baddox » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:21 PM UTC

corin_ wrote: post #2

This reads like the sort of post that so often goes on bad logic riding on emotion, but it's a completely valid point. I'm a Visa user, plus I don't plan on going anywhere near the Olympics despite living fairly close to London, but when I heard about this marketing plan I literally thought it had to be one of those hilarious fake news stories. But it wasn't. Stuff like the McDonalds sponsorship he mentioned (banning…

It seems like you and the author are assuming that everyone has some sort of right or reasonable expectation to be able to buy products with any payment method they choose. But that's rarely the case. There are tons of places that simply don't accept MasterCard or American Express, for example. Almost no place will accept barter. The only way this was a bad decision by Visa and the Olympics is if the sponsorship payment wasn't enough to cover the lost sales, which is unlikely to be the case.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#50

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Aug 06, 2012, 10:22 PM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #14

I'm surprised Visa even needs to market, whenever I have been issued a card by my bank sometimes it's been a VISA and sometimes a Mastercard/Maestro. I assume I could get one particular type of card if I specifically requested it but I really don't understand what the difference would be to the end user. I guess perhaps if the only differentiating factor is "you can use this one if you goto the olympics" then maybe t…

The simple truth is that Visa largely is marketing.

It's also a huge transaction processing system, but the larger part of the organization is in fact responsible for managing the brand.

Think about that next time you're looking at your interest rate and/or merchant fees associated with your credit/debit card.