Imagine knowing that while you are building up that credit card tally at your favorite mall this Christmas season, the whole high-interest-bearing load might be written off your next credit card statement.
Some shoppers using Visa USA cards this season will get a whopper of a surprise with their monthly card bills. Their purchases are free if they were made during a one-second time period randomly selected for each day of the two-month Visa Magic Moments promo. Purchase times are measured based on when they were processed and time-stamped in the Visa Net settlement system.
After two years of sponsoring the Read Me A Story event promotion for the holidays, Visa has opted for a promo that promises substantial rewards for a lucky sliver of card wielders. (Performances of Read Me A Story, a co-promotion with Reading is Fundamental, continue for a third year in an expanded time frame from August through the school year).
The $20 million Magic Moments promo started Nov. 1, and Visa forecasts its prize exposure could run to $1.5 million with over 60 Magic seconds offered. Visa had insured itself for a payout amount exceeding “a couple million bucks,” says Visa USA senior vp marketing services Robert Pifke.
As of Nov. 6 – six days into the event – Magic Moments was cruising along comfortably within the predicted exposure range, with $24,000 having been credited to 400 winners whose card buys were time-stamped to coincide with the value spans, according to a company spokesperson.
After Nov. 11, Visa said it will be provide updates on how card holders are faring at its Website, magic-everyday. Frankel & Co handles. BBDO did the advertising.
FAC Services Group, an independent judging group, is randomly selecting 61 moments. Extra moments will be ladled on by Visa and partners including Dell Computer and Best Buy stores throughout the event. Visa will add one extra daily moment in the three-day weekend following Thanksgiving. The 312-store Minneapolis-based Best Buy consumer electronics chain will pick one second for each hour in the two days after Turkey Day when buys will be free. Dell Computer will give away one free computer each day throughout the promotion period for persons buying a computer with a Visa card online. Dell sells $6 million worth of computers a day online.
Giant Food/Super G and Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts are other magic moment retail partners who are giving away bonus prizes to card holders whose winning purchases were made at their stores. Visa market development and acceptance group approached 100 retail accounts offering them a chance to link their own offers into the promotion.
The odds of winning each day are 1-in-86,400. Visa can process up to 3,200 transactions per second, so conceivably there could be 3,200 winners per day.
Visa’s financial partners and merchants quickly jumped aboard the effort after consumer research showed unusually high interest, says Pifke.
Member banks will distribute 91 million card statement inserts promoting Magic Moments, and 35,000 merchants will display point-of-sale materials.
Visa has nine years worth of data showing what consumers like in a promotion. The idea for Magic Moments came a year ago when Visa marketers sat in on consumer focus groups where “the idea of using a moment in time as a way to determine who wins came up, ” says Pifke.
Eight out of ten consumers were interested in magic moments with one-half saying they would use their card more often because of it. “It broke all records in consumer response to a promotional idea,” says Pifke.
The ad campaign launched Nov. 1 with billboards and radio with the tag, “Do You Believe in Magic.”
A national television “ad roadblock” will be used on Thanksgiving evening at 9 p.m., when Visa will air a TV commercial on five different networks to “reach a huge percentage of consumers simultaneously while they are digesting their turkey,” says Pifke.
A team of statisticians on steroids will be needed to help figure the net incremental gain from Magic Moments once it’s all over. Even a slight uptick is impressive. What is, say, five percent of $50 billion, Visa’s typical fourth-quarter charging volume?
