Visa's Olympic Campaign

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=142013

This article describes the global campaign launched by Visa for the Olympics. I had seen a few of the ads prior to reading the article, but I didn't understand the extent of the campaign until after I read the article. The ads are a series of emotional moments in the Olympics tied together by the slogan "Go World." The commercial featured in this article tells the story of Dan Jansen, a speed skater. Dan lost his sister shortly before his Olympic race in 1988, and ended up falling, losing the race. The most heartbreaking part was that he had promised his sister he would win the gold. The commercial goes on to say that Dan Jansen did win a gold medal six years later, fulfilling his promise. Advertisements such as this position Visa in a unique way amongst its competitors. It gives them an emotional aspect and creates trust between the company and its consumers. This positioning makes sense now that Visa is a newly public company. It gives them a more serious, experienced feel that in a way reminds me a lot of Coca-Cola.

The other aspect of this campaign that caught my attention was Visa's emphasis on social media and the digital world. They spent 50% of their media buys on promotional tools such as 3D ads, YouTube, and Facebook, which really spells out the importance of social media to a campaign these days. Using these media, consumers are able to see the Olympic TV spots as well as track the "Visa athletes" throughout their training and competition. This really interested me because Visa is putting so much time and money into this campaign, utilizing all forms of media and truly operating on a global level. The campaign portrays Visa as a confident company ready to kick it up a notch.

Below is the commercial featured in the article. The rest can be found at Visa's YouTube page:

http://www.youtube.com/visagoworld#p/u/0/4O1dpO8uKB8