Visa USA plans to leverage its 2006 Torino Olympic Games sponsorship along the same lines as its successful 2004 Athens Summer Games sponsorship platform.
In addition to an integrated marketing campaign and a consumer sweepstakes, Visa will launch a cause-related initiative to raise a minimum of $1 million to help support America’s Olympic and Paralympic athletes by selling pins through its retail partners. The pins are expected to be unveiled in October.
“This will allow Visa card holders, our member banks and our retail partners to contribute to our Olympic athletes,” said Visa USA Senior VP Michael Lynch.
Visa will work directly with its member financial institutions and merchants to create promotional, in-branch, direct mail and P-O-P marketing programs that promote Visa’s Olympic-related properties. The partners will use the Olympic marks and 15 athletes in customer communication programs.
A sweepstakes, Join the Journey, will dangle a grand-prize trip to the games for the winner and three guests. Ten first-prize winners will receive a 42-inch Panasonic HD Plasma TV installed in their homes in time for the Olympics, which will be held Feb. 10-26 and televised by NBC and its network partners. The sweepstakes, handled by Frankel, Chicago, will run from Aug. 1 to Sept. 30. Consumers will be automatically entered when they use their Visa card.
“Not everyone has the time commitment needed to go to the Olympics,” Lynch said. “But with NBC televising the games at the frequency they do, it allows the winners to catch the excitement at home.”
Independent research conducted during the 2004 Summer Games showed that the brand was rated number-one among all Olympic sponsors in consumer awareness, favorability of Olympic-themed advertising and in supporting the Olympic movement, Visa USA CMO Susanne Lyons said.
“It’s great that a financial services company rated that high in brand awareness,” Lynch said. “That is something you would expect from a brand like Nike or Coca-Cola.”
Some 212 member banks and more than 1,900 merchants participated in Visa’s marketing programs for the 2004 Games, and Visa expects bigger numbers for the 2006 Torino Games, Lynch said.
Already for 2006, Visa has partnered with DirecTV to give discounts to subscribers who pay their bills using a Visa card. The program is being promoted with inserts in DirecTV billing statements.
Lynch added that McDonald’s, which recently began accepting credit cards at its restaurants nationwide and is also an Olympic sponsor, may work with Visa for cross promotions leading up to Torino.
In a press conference at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York last week, Visa identified the 15 Olympic and Paralympic athletes who will represent the brand through the games in TV ads and on Olympic-themed Visa cards. The athletes, Lynch said, were chosen because of their character and potential star-power.
“We chose these athletes because they are high-character individuals that we’re proud to be associated with,” Lynch said. “It’s not as much about their gold medal chances as it is athletes who are doing the best they can to fulfill their dreams, which our brand marketing platform is based on.”
Visa’s Gold Medal Athletes for the 2006 Games include alpine skiers Bode Miller, Marco Sullivan and Julia Mancuso, figure skater Michelle Kwan, freestyle moguls skier Travis Cabral, ice hockey pioneer Cammi Granato, speed skater Derek Parra, snowboard cross champions Lindsey Jacobellis and Seth Wescott, freestyle aerialist Emily Cook, skeleton veteran Lea Ann Parsley, bobsledder Jill Bakken, nordic combined star Johnny Spillane, and Paralympic standouts Laurie Stephens (Disabled Alpine) and Manuel Guerra (Sledge Hockey).
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