MasterCard, Gwen Stefani tout 'Priceless Surprises' with Apple Pay
Apple's mobile payment partners continued their marketing onslaught on Monday as MasterCard, the world's second-largest credit card provider, released a new 30-second television ad featuring Apple Pay and female rocker Gwen Stefani.
The spot shows Stefani, armed with a "Surprise launcher," bombarding consumers who use their MasterCard-branded card via Apple Pay with free gifts. A handbag, a golf trip, and tickets to a Gwen Stefani concert among the gifts shown.
According to MasterCard, their partnership with Stefani will be wide-ranging, from "private performances, exclusive access to co-created content and unique experiences."
"Gwen Stefani's personal brand, consumer appeal and sheer energy are what make her an ideal partner to serve as an ambassador for our Priceless Surprises platform," MasterCard CMO Raja Rajamannar said in a release. "This platform has really taken hold and is inspiring a movement of Priceless Surprises whereby we're providing unexpected surprises to our cardholders and in turn they are sharing surprises with others in their lives. With Gwen's help we hope to further this movement."
It is unclear what, if any, input Apple had into the partnership. Apple is said to retain creative control over any advertisements featuring its new payment platform, with marketing czar Phil Schiller personally approving storyboards.
"Our concepts went to Phil, our storyboards went to Phil and someone from the brand team was on the shoot, so they were involved there too," Chase marketing executive Susan Canavari said of the production of the bank's own Apple Pay-focused spot.
The spot shows Stefani, armed with a "Surprise launcher," bombarding consumers who use their MasterCard-branded card via Apple Pay with free gifts. A handbag, a golf trip, and tickets to a Gwen Stefani concert among the gifts shown.
According to MasterCard, their partnership with Stefani will be wide-ranging, from "private performances, exclusive access to co-created content and unique experiences."
"Gwen Stefani's personal brand, consumer appeal and sheer energy are what make her an ideal partner to serve as an ambassador for our Priceless Surprises platform," MasterCard CMO Raja Rajamannar said in a release. "This platform has really taken hold and is inspiring a movement of Priceless Surprises whereby we're providing unexpected surprises to our cardholders and in turn they are sharing surprises with others in their lives. With Gwen's help we hope to further this movement."
It is unclear what, if any, input Apple had into the partnership. Apple is said to retain creative control over any advertisements featuring its new payment platform, with marketing czar Phil Schiller personally approving storyboards.
"Our concepts went to Phil, our storyboards went to Phil and someone from the brand team was on the shoot, so they were involved there too," Chase marketing executive Susan Canavari said of the production of the bank's own Apple Pay-focused spot.
Comments
Does anyone need anymore proof that Apple Pay offers a significant security benefit to banks/CC companies? They're actually spending their own money encouraging people to use Apple Pay. This despite it costing them 0.15% on every transaction.
Good point. I was shocked to read the cost if fraud in the US alone, ?Pay could dramatically help the overall economy I would think.
BTW she is one very talented lady.
Good point. I was shocked to read the cost if fraud in the US alone, ?Pay could dramatically help the overall economy I would think.
BTW she is one very talented lady.
And she taught a generation how to spell bananas ;-)
I wonder how PayPal will respond to this? The same goes for Samsung with its swipe finger print sensor. I should not forget Google with its Google Wallet
Google is now in a terrible position. They could change the underlying architecture of Wallet so it uses the same tokenization system that Apple Pay uses. This would give them increased security.
However, it would change two other features about Wallet. First it will no longer work with ANY card, but only cards from participating financial institutions. Secondly, and the real biggie for Google, is they would lose their ability to mine user purchase data. And let's face it, Google didn't create Wallet out of the goodness of their hearts - they created it as yet another source of information for them to mine.
Cool ad, like it !
For some reason, embedded videos on this site always show up wrong on my browser. They're sort of cropped.
I'm on the newest Safari on the newest Yosemite.
And lastly, it seems that ?Pay is getting a lot of support these days. That's good!
I actually bought a few No Doubt songs recently during the Steam sale for Rocksmith. Rocksmith is a really cool program. I use it with bass and guitar.
I guess I don't shop at the right places...
LOL
I'd love to se her, Christina Aguilera and Fergie do a joint show.
Amazing how beautiful she still is.
BTW she is one very talented lady.
Yet, if it was Beyoncé most would say she's talentless, or some lie or negative comment when essentially they are very similar = beautiful, singers, left the group/band they started with (although occasionally appear with them), both has worked with Dr. Dre, Neptunes (Pharrell Williams). Also, Beyoncé does co-write and co-produce most of her music. I'm indifferent towards Gwen, she's talented I'm sure, but I always find it interesting how people react or would react to things that are outside their world of norm.
Here's the link so we can all laugh...again.
I disagree. I remember when Beyonce released her album solely on iTunes, and I don't remember a single post calling her talentless, nor any negative comments. Some said that they didn’t care for her music, but no put downs.
Target is quietly fighting back, not sure how effective it will be if everyone does not know about. Yesterday I was in Target about to use my credit card and as usual the attendant ask me to if I want to use my Target card (which I no longer have) and I said no and as usually they said would like to apply for one, answer was no, and here comes the change normally they would say you could save 5% or 10% on this purchase if you sign up now. However, this time they said if you sign up you will save 5% on all future purchase is you use the Target card.
Now if retailers will knock off 5% on ever purchase I make I would consider stop using my CC. I get 1% back on my CC and I pay off ever month so I make 1% on all my purchases in a year which adds up. Also they throw in 5% for special purchases. The only reason I use a CC so much is most Retailers already charge you the extra 2% to 5% on ever product to cover the cost of a CC transaction.
It will be interesting to see what happens here, I would say if people know they are saving 5% by not using a CC that maybe enough to get people to change their purchasing habits.
It's better than Microsoft's Songsmith eh? I never laughed so hard in my life at the promotional videos they made for it.
I'm not familiar with MS songsmith, but Rocksmith is the real deal.
You just plug your bass or guitar into the computer, and then you choose a song to play along with. The base program comes with about 50 songs in the catalog. You can purchase additional content also.
It's a great teaching tool. It grades you after each performance and you get a score, so that you can keep track of your progress.
I bet that somebody who has no experience at all can become ok at their instrument in a few months, and they'll be playing along to all sorts of different songs.
BTW- I just saw the video for MS songsmith......Ouch..........
The best part in the video is when the guy in the cafe says, "Oh, it's Microsoft... so it's easy to use then?"