MasterCard Takes New “Priceless’ Tact
MasterCard Worldwide is taking a new approach to its ongoing “Priceless” campaign, this time awarding prizes through random magazine inserts rather than basing them on its elite card customers’ usage.
It’s a “Priceless Search” for three envelopes to be inserted in the April issues of several Conde Nast April issues. The travel prize—a trip for two to the Great Pyramids of Giza, Victoria Falls, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Amazon, the Great Barrier Reef and Machu Picchu—will be tucked into copies of GQ, Conde Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair and Wired.
A dining experience with chef David Bouley and having one’s portrait painted by American artist Julian Schnabel are the other prizes.
Ads in the Conde Nast March issues, including The New Yorker, Architectural Digest and Bon Appetit, will plug the campaign, which was trumpeted during a 60-second spot in the recent Academy Awards broadcast on ABC.
“It’s an entirely different approach to promotion,” said Patty Ryan, director of operations for Project Support Team (PST), which administers MC campaigns. “MC traditionally offers campaigns on automatic usage. Really it’s the revelation of the seek and find. That instantaneous message introduces surprise into the consumer experience.”
PST, a promotion administration agency specializing in online and off-line sweepstakes, games and contests, has supported the logistics of more than 500 MC campaigns over the past decade. The company has handled fulfillment, making sure those prizes “fit the right footprint for the campaign,” Ryan said.
MasterCard is still aiming at the same upscale target audience with a simple twist, said MasterCard spokesman Jon Schwartz. “Based on the notion that people are looking for the finer things in life, and if you look, you’ll find them.”
And the less tangible result – beyond the promotional appeal – remains the same in witnessing the results. “Truly you know you’ve touched a person’s life and changed a person’s life for the better,” said Ryan.
