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Great work Visa, now I hate you

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Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#11

Post by dangrossman »

apendleton wrote: post #3

I'm not sure what the basis is for the assumption that this is a marketing move. It seems like the more obvious motivation would be to force everyone to pay with Visa to get the credit card fees from what will undoubtedly be several million dollars' worth of purchases, as a means of partially offsetting the cost of the investment in the sponsorship.

I don't think Visa Inc., which has been sponsoring the Olympics since 1986 in whatever country it's held, gets any transaction fees from Visa card acceptance in Europe. Visa Europe is an independent company with an irrevocable license to the Visa brand and an interoperability agreement. That suggests to me that the sponsorship is purely a marketing move.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#12

Post by jonknee »

chokolad wrote: post #7
jonknee wrote: post #4

So this is about a man with a Visa card upset that his Visa card is accepted everywhere he goes. Visa has been exclusive at the Olympics for a long time and even though I have never been I know that.

But the fact that only Visa is accepted is not really something to be proud of, is it?

The fact of any corporate sponsorship isn't something to be proud of. Your Big Mac isn't going to taste better because they forked over a ton of cash to the IOC. I have a Diet Coke on my desk right now and I'm not proud at all over it being available at the Olympics instead of Pepsi.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#13

Post by fleitz »

jonknee wrote: post #4

So this is about a man with a Visa card upset that his Visa card is accepted everywhere he goes. Visa has been exclusive at the Olympics for a long time and even though I have never been I know that.

Here's the issue, you walk into a store that you've been going to since you were a kid, pull out the payment card that you've been using since you were an adult, and they point you to a sign that says only Visa is accepted even though you bought something on interac a week before.

It's not about visa being exclusive to the Olympics, its about VISA being the only thing you can use to buy shit in your hometown. Basically, if you could buy a quaachi in the store then it was going to be a pain in the ass.

It's a piss off, people don't like to be forced to do things for arbitrary reasons.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#14

Post by jiggy2011 »

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 that is enough to sway a bunch of people?

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#15

Post by jonknee »

fleitz wrote: post #13
jonknee wrote: post #4

So this is about a man with a Visa card upset that his Visa card is accepted everywhere he goes. Visa has been exclusive at the Olympics for a long time and even though I have never been I know that.

Here's the issue, you walk into a store that you've been going to since you were a kid, pull out the payment card that you've been using since you were an adult, and they point you to a sign that says only Visa is accepted even though you bought something on interac a week before. It's not about visa being exclusive to the Olympics, its about VISA being the only thing you can use to buy shit in your hometown. Basical…

But that didn't happen. He went to an Olympic stadium, probably one built just for this event. It's like complaining that only Coke products were for sale (which is also the case thanks to a giant Coca Cola sponsorship).

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#16

Post by jiggy2011 »

fleitz wrote: post #13
jonknee wrote: post #4

So this is about a man with a Visa card upset that his Visa card is accepted everywhere he goes. Visa has been exclusive at the Olympics for a long time and even though I have never been I know that.

Here's the issue, you walk into a store that you've been going to since you were a kid, pull out the payment card that you've been using since you were an adult, and they point you to a sign that says only Visa is accepted even though you bought something on interac a week before. It's not about visa being exclusive to the Olympics, its about VISA being the only thing you can use to buy shit in your hometown. Basical…

This is pretty much exactly how I feel about services that suddenly require a FB or google account for signup. Or websites that insist on using Silverlight to stream video when HTML video or even flash or a .mpeg file would have sufficed.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#17

Post by mthoms »

jonknee wrote: post #10
mthoms wrote: post #6

During the Vancouver Olympics not only were we not permitted to use other credit cards, we couldn't even use our bank-issued debit cards for payment (in Canada we don't have Visa Debit cards - our debit cards are issued directly from banks have been accepted everywhere for nearly two decades.) Cash or Visa Only. So there I was at an official Olympic souvenir shop picking up some gifts when I was told no - I'd have to…

> 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.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#18

Post by Shenglong »

I disagree completely. Visa sponsored the event - why would they want competitors there? When the average person sees that his or her Mastercard is not accepted, I don't think the first response is "damn you, Visa!" Just like, when I see an AMEX card isn't accepted, I don't say "Damn you Visa and Mastercard for offering lower rates!"

The image that Visa is trying to promote is that they're the most commonly accepted card. Because consumer perks vary only slightly (if at all) in home countries, for most consumers, the question becomes permeation. If they see lots of places accepting Visa and not Mastercard then they're more likely to get a Mastercard.

To give you a closer-to-home example: In Canada, we have Tim Hortons - which is a cheaper version of Starbucks (and it's very popular). They take Mastercard, but not Visa. There have been several situations where I've been unable to purchase food because I use Visa and I hate cash. At no point have I said "damn you, Mastercard! I hate you!" In fact, if I actually drank coffee, I'd probably have gotten a MC already.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#19

Post by netaustin »

The flip side of this marketing proposition (give something, not take something) is exactly what American Express does. At last year's US Open, American Express gave cardholders a special little radio from a booth in the concession area. Many people had these radios, which was good marketing for American Express, especially considering the presumably affluent audience attending an expensive event. But they didn't actually inconvenience anyone in the process.

Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you

#20

Post by jiggy2011 »

klausa wrote: post #5
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…

>But this Visa deal, what on earth are people without Visa supposed to do? I just don't see how anyone sane could think this was a good plan, either from an Olympic organiser's point of view, or Visa's. I think both OP and you (or me, for that matter) don't have access to important data - specifically, what's the percentage of people that have BOTH Visa and MasterCard (and what percentage of those that do not, are li…

I suppose it depends on the demographic, if the olympics is mainly attended by relatively affluent people with multiple credit cards. I know plenty of people who don't even have a credit card beyond a bank issued Maestro debit card.
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