Visa’s Commitment to an Audience First Approach

Visa’s global chief marketing officer, Antonio Lucio, centered his key note speech on the first day of the BRITE ’11 conference around Visa’s journey from traditional marketing to a new model, guided by the principals of online communications and social media, an “audience first” approach. In response to today’s changing media consumption landscape he noted that,

Thirty-percent of our media weight is going to digital. Now we have a justification to take that to 40-percent.

Antonio has restructured Visa’s advertising strategy to begin with a strategic media plan, targeting consumers at digital sites where they spend the most time. Based on this plan, the company then begins its creative development along the following three principles:

• Sharing is the new giving
• Participation is the new consumption
• Recommendation is the new advertising

At the end of his talk, Antonio exclaimed, “I’ve been doing this for a very long time, and I have to say I’ve never been as excited to be a marketer as I am today with all the changes and all the opportunity that technology provides.”

BY MATTHEW QUINT

CMO Lucio Is Making Things Go at Visa

Antonio Lucio’s (BRITE ’11 speaker) decisiveness and creativity during an economic crisis earned him a mention as one of Fortune magazine’s eight most innovative people in 2009.

When Antonio Lucio became Visa’s first global chief marketing officer, he undertook the daunting task of finding “the tone of the times,” implementing it globally and ensuring it was cost efficient and effective.

In 2009, Lucio launched Visa’s first global themed campaign, “More People Go With Visa,” in 48 countries within a three-week window. “Go With Visa” is meant to motivate consumers and businesses to migrate their cash and checks usage to Visa’s electronic payment system. Lucio told BtoB magazine to expect a deeper focus next year on leveraging Visa’s product platforms, including mobile, debit cards, affluent credit cards, e-commerce and money transfer.

The “Go” campaign struck a “glocal” (global-local) balance that made it a success around the world.  In 2010, Visa launched another global campaign tied to the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Besides being global, the campaign involved more promotional and more digital elements than ever before, including Visa’s first-ever 3-D ads, a dedicated Facebook page and YouTube channel, as well as promotions that included a chance to win tickets for life to the Olympics.

“We are a technology company, and we’ve built a business based on innovation,” Mr. Lucio told AdvertisingAge. “Whether it is the success of the debit card or anything we’re doing on mobile and money transfer, we want to leverage the same innovative skills that we use on our products in our marketing.”

Hear Antonio Lucio speak at our BRITE ’11 conference (Mar 2-3, 2011). Register now!

BY MATTHEW QUINT