The Purchase, N.Y., payments network is planning to unveil a consumer advertising campaign this spring, including television commercials, to promote reloadable prepaid cards to a larger audience.
Laura Kelly, MasterCard's senior vice president of global prepaid solutions, said the campaign's slogan — "Everyday Prepaid" — is meant to demystify the cards, which are often referred to with such decidedly uncatchy labels as "general-purpose," "network-branded" or "stored-value reloadable."
"Obviously consumers many times don't understand what a GPR is. … 'General-purpose reloadable prepaid' just doesn't roll off my lip, and I'm in the business," Kelly said. "We really did try to say, 'What's the simple answer and the simple way to describe this product?' "
Executives at prepaid debit card companies and industry analysts have said the recession is broadening consumer demand for the cards, which can allow both underbanked and credit-deprived customers to pay with plastic instead of cash. A recent survey of prepaid card executives said many are wondering why the major payment networks, with their large marketing budgets and omnipresent television commercials, have done so little to mention prepaid in those ads.
Visa Inc. has run television spots for prepaid products in the past, but it is not currently running any such commercial and has no prepaid-specific television campaign planned, according to Hyung Choi, the San Francisco company's senior business leader for prepaid products.
"What we've done in the past, and we've done this for a couple of years now, is to run a very specific general-purpose reloadable spot in several key markets across the U.S., to drive awareness and to drive acquisition of the product," he said. "We will continue to evaluate the use of this tool to drive further awareness and education of the product in the marketplace, but that's going to be just one of the components."
Visa's current prepaid marketing strategy hinges on in-store and online promotions, such as signage or tax-time refund sweepstakes, with its partners, Choi said.
Kelly would not state other specifics about the MasterCard campaign's start date, cost or scope, except to say that it will be "multichannel."
"It's incumbent on all of us to make investments in the space," she said. "The majority of the spend on that card is kind of everyday spend. … The purpose is to actually focus on everyday prepaid and for people to connect the prepaid category with things that they use it for every day."
The March survey of executives from 21 prepaid companies by the Boston consulting firm Aite Group LLC said many such executives have been frustrated by the networks' lack of investment in television advertising.
The report, published last month, said 65% of respondents mentioned "education, awareness or demand cultivation" as one of the biggest challenges facing the prepaid industry.
"On the awareness front, a recurring theme is card networks' not doing enough to promote prepaid cards, in particular in their TV commercials, which highlight credit and debit but fail to mention prepaid cards," the report said.
Gwenn Bezard, a research director at Aite and the report's author, praised the MasterCard campaign in an interview and said it will earn a lot of good will — and potentially more business — from prepaid companies.
