Comdata, Serious Team for DVD Gift Cards
Gift card processor Comdata Stored Value Solutions will ally with digital publisher Serious USA to produce interactive DVD gift cards, offering new options for retailers this season.
The DVD cards work like traditional gift cards, with magnetic payment stripes on one side. But they also offer instant gratification, in the form of interactive content, including music downloads, movie clips, games, product descriptions, coupons and catalogs.
Recipients insert the gift card into any DVD player to peruse the content. If the device is connected to an online computer, people can immediately redeem any coupons contained on the card.
The card should help drive people to retailer Web sites through content integrated into the disk. And the majority of that traffic will be pre-sold and thus more valuable.
The cards also offer one possible solution to a gift-card problem many retailers face: the lag time between card purchase and redemption.
“The functionality of the DVD gift card provides the ultimate integration of media, product and sales strategies, as well as creative differentiation to help retailers gain market share, quicker conversions of the cash to a sale and leverage value to their core business,” said Serious USA CEO David J. Brown in a statement.
Serious’ digital publishing platform has been used in interactive gift cards, loyalty cards, patient education cards for pharmaceutical products, direct mail campaigns and digital trading cards. The company last spring created a DVD gift card for Circuit City featuring clips and content tied to Walt Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (Promo P&I, May 16, 2007).
