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Visa USA is giving cardholders a little help this holiday season. Call it paybacks for the help consumers gave in crafting the campaign.

Visa dramatically increased consumer research to fine-tune its annual fourth-quarter sweepstakes. This year’s November-December sweeps, dubbed Personal Helper, will award a $20,000 prize every day (over 61 days) and give winners access to personal services from cooking and housecleaning to travel planning and shopping. Cardholders get an automatic entry each time they use their Visa card through year-end. Each winner gets access to Visa’s Personal Helper service through 2004.

Visa stepped up research to insure its concept and execution were spot on. “We set a new standard at Visa,” says senior VP-marketing services Bob Pifke.

The stakes are high. Visa’s fourth-quarter promo can bring in as much as $3 billion in incremental volume — that’s what Magic Moments garnered in 2001. And Visa will spend an estimated $30 million on Personal Helper. (Fourth-quarter ad spending topped $46 million last year, per TNS Media Intelligence/CMR.)

Visa started with focus groups of women (who do 80% of holiday shopping) and found that most feel pressed for time — for shopping, cooking and decorating. “The primary consumer mindset is, ‘I don’t have time, I need help,’” says Pifke. “That led very obviously to the idea of a personal helper.”

Visa tapped its existing concierge service (for Signature cardholders) to make it part of a prize package — a first for San Francisco-based Visa. Winners get $20,000 and can call a Visa concierge anytime to arrange services. (Winners pay helpers directly.) It was one of four concepts Visa tested with 1,200 consumers via online interviews. Personal Helper scored the highest ever in the 14 years Visa has used its questionnaire, which asks consumers’ interest and likelihood to use their card more; clarity and believability of the offer; and consistency of the brand message.

Visa pitched it as a “personal assistant,” but “people thought that meant a Palm Pilot,” says Pifke. “It took a long time to come up with ‘personal helper.’”

Four agencies collaborated on creative: Frankel, San Francisco (promo, P-O-P); BBDO, New York City (TV); Golin Harris, San Francisco (p.r.); and AKQA, San Francisco (online ads). Visa tested creative along the way in one-on-one consumer interviews. There was also “a lot of pushing back and forth” to balance three elements: the value of the offer, the services themselves, and the level of choice.

Pre-promo phone interviews measured consumers’ “static awareness” of Visa for a benchmark to compare with consumer attitudes three months from now. Visa tests consumers’ attitudes, primary card, and primary payment method for most recent purchases before and after promos. (Past holiday promos have bumped attitude measures 10% to 12%.) But incremental attitude data is secondary to Visa’s real measure of success: incremental volume. With a 12-month rolling volume of $1 trillion, volume is big bucks.

Visa’s research department, not marketing, handles all phases of research “so there’s no question about objectivity,” says Pifke. Most of the work is outsourced; Frankel handled the first focus groups. Visa has conducted most of its consumer research online for nearly three years. The first year, Visa did parallel off- and online studies to be sure its online sample was representative of the total population. It tested 10 promos that way, and online results were consistent with off-line work. Visa now relies on the cheaper, quicker online surveys.

That protocol let Visa test a competitor’s holiday promo for the first time. Visa caught wind of MasterCard’s plans early enough to test the concept with its own consumer base. Visa’s concept scored better in consumer interest, card use, and likelihood to switch brands. “Knowing the strength of our program may encourage some banks to put more oomph behind it,” Pifke says.