This title can also be read as a really absurd immigration article.
Great work Visa, now I hate you
101–110 of 267 posts
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#102This 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…
bad logic riding on emotion
Humans make purchasing decisions in a fundamentally emotional way. Most of the best marketing out there trades on emotion.
People get pissed off and hold grudges in a completely irrational way. Think of all of the people who refuse to buy [BRAND X] because the first product they had from them eventually failed. Visa just went out of their way to have a lot of people hold grudges against them.
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#103What really gets me is the use of the term "proud" - as if the people displaying such signage really feel anything remotely like pride about it.
In reality they likely feel indifferently(they're going to make a lot of money anyways, just being at the Olympics). But they certainly do not think to themselves "This is a good thing I'm doing. I'm happy to present this to my customers."
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#104This 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…
Well, anyone who was British and bought their tickets through the official UK process for buying Olympic tickets had to use Visa to pay for them anyway. I think lot of people bought their tickets through travel agents, though.
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I'm saying that any lost sales the IOC sees from people who don't have cash or Visa will be more than made up by the huge amount of cash Visa paid to be a sponsor. The $700m figure just shows that the exclusive relationship is doing just fine.
More likely, in my mind: The IOC gets the marketing money from Visa, while the independent vendors at the Olympics take the hit from not being able to accept MasterCard.
Ding. Ding. Ding. We have a winner!
Moreover, the terms the independent vendors get are likely extremely onerous, such that they are likely the ones shafted with inventory for items that don't sell.
The IOC gets the money coming and going. Which is good to support, you know, amateur athletics.
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#106It'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 corre…
Yep, there is also the stipulation that no Shops in London are allowed to sell hot Chips unless sold with Fish aka Fish and Chips, because McDonalds has exclusive sponsor rights on Chips. I should say that English Chips really are nothing like McDonalds french fries. Same thing, different brand
> I'm not sure if this was the point Yep, there is also the stipulation that no Shops in London are allowed to sell hot Chips unless sold with Fish aka Fish and Chips (...)
Just to clarify, the restriction only applies in and around the Olympic venues, not the whole of London!
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#107It'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 corre…
This fits in nicely with the IOC WLAN police: https://twitter.com/SadaoTurner/status/230737352958566401/ph...
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#108More realistically, Visa was probably hoping that many consumers would, like the author, already have the option of and be forced into using their Visa card. I agree that this seems, in addition to being extremely frustrating to almost all consumers, a silly marketing move, but I'm sure that Visa has run the numbers and has a sound business reason for doing this. Since, judging by mthoms's post, this seems to be a tr…
>but I'm sure that Visa has run the numbers and has a sound business reason for doing this. As someone who worked for an advertising Agency with a big bank as a client, I think this is probably not the case. A marketing ploy usually starts with a reasonable idea and then slowly morphs into something horrible as it makes it's way through various departments; market research, legal, management etc. This campaign probab…
As someone who gets paid to 'run the numbers,' I can tell you that many large businesses make their decisions based on internal bureaucratic politics rather than sound business reasons. The executive sponsoring of the analysis project can easily bully the analysts into agreeing or simply restrict information from them such that the available evidence matches the sponsor's opinion.
And sometimes there is simply no data. We can't estimate the value of a year of college to the average American. There are a vast number of variables involved in the flavor of Olympic sponsorship. There are a tiny number of observations. Sure, you could count other large events, but few if any are truly on the scale of the Olympics. And there will be differences according to the host city and the technology situation. The harder the problem is, the more your assumptions (or 'a priori knowledge' if you're confident) affect the answers. It's like Congress trying to estimate the effect of legislation on tax returns over the next 30 years.
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#109On the one hand, the author makes a good point. On the other hand, he actually uses the phrase "simple folks" as if this were a Populist meeting in the 1890s. I'm really surprised by how much that one slip has undermined his credibility with me.
I am surprised that it had that effect on you too. You even realize that it did, and don't rationally reevaluate? How does that work?
Re: Great work Visa, now I hate you
#110It'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 corre…
This fits in nicely with the IOC WLAN police: https://twitter.com/SadaoTurner/status/230737352958566401/ph...
Why? What's wrong with free WiFi? (This is a genuine question)