Ed McKinley

By the looks of their spending, card issuers and the major card brands harbor a deep and abiding belief in the power of advertising. The industry's top 20 advertisers shelled out a combined $2 billion to get their messages across to the American public last year, with American Express accounting for roughly one-fourth of the total.

It took six years for the U.S. Department of Justice to succeed in overturning Visa USA and MasterCard Inter-national policies that prevented their member financial institutions from issuing American Express cards. The U.S. Supreme Court in late 2004 upheld lower-court rulings that struck down those bans, yet a monolithic, coordinated marketing blitz to encourage banks to issue AmEx cards appears unlikely.

An American executive traveled to India recently, hoping to cement relations with local employees at his firm's new call center there. Soon after arriving, he found himself scanning a dozen eager faces arrayed around a conference table.

Gays and lesbians might seem like a natural constituency for card marketers. They belong to a community of millions of heavy card users who tend to respond well to targeted messages and often wield higher-than-average discretionary income.

In a classic example of product placement, a character in a TV show clutches a can of Coca-Cola with the logo purposely turned to the camera. Either consciously or subliminally, the viewer is exposed to the idea that admirable people drink Coke.

Fair Isaac Corp., probably best known for its FICO credit rating scoring system, lately has been targeting the collections industry. Now, the company says, the pieces are in place to provide an array of analytics, software and services to companies that handle credit accounts from inception through collections.