In its first such effort since it started issuing Walt Disney Co.-branded cards in March, Bank One Corp. on Thursday announced a promotional add-on to a Visa U.S.A. campaign.
Visa says it is the driver of the “Kids Stay and Play Free” campaign, which is part of its joint marketing program with Disney called “Magical Gatherings” that was also announced Thursday.
Under “Kids Stay and Play Free,” consumers who use a Visa card to pay for a Disney vacation are eligible — under certain conditions — for a discount that amounts to bringing one child free per adult when staying for four nights or more. Bank One is offering an extra $100 in Disney currency to those who take advantage of the Visa offer using its Disney-branded cards.
Visa usually promotes its marketing deals without the explicit collaboration of an issuing bank; the deals are meant to lift business for all member banks. But Bank One is not only the sole issuer of Disney credit cards, but it appears alongside Visa in announcements related to “Kids Stay and Play Free.”
That campaign is designed primarily to boost the Visa brand and provide all its issuers with a way to increase volume, said Becky Saeger, the executive vice president at Visa in charge of brand marketing. Though Bank One will take the lead on other promotions with Disney, in this case it is plugging into a campaign that Visa developed. Ms. Saeger said such a setup is not unusual when a Visa partner also has a cobrand deal with an issuer.
“You clearly see the benefits to Bank One in all this. They worked with Visa and Disney to fluff up” the main promotion, which Visa says will allow a family of four to save $443, with an additional offer, she said. “In most of our partnerships and sponsorships where there is a cobrand portfolio involved, the issuer has an opportunity to ride the wave of broader Visa activities.”
The three-party nature of the arrangement is perhaps more salient because of the newness of the Bank One product and the high profile of the Disney name, Ms. Saeger said.
Bank One described the Disney promotion as a way to push usage by current cardholders and to snag new customers, potentially from other Visa issuers.
Tom O’Donnell, the senior vice president in charge of the Disney contract for the Chicago banking company, said the extra $100 of Disney Dollars could lure consumers who take advantage of the Visa promotion into signing up for the Bank One card. “It’s a strong possibility, if they connect the added benefits of the offer with having the Disney card.”
But asked why other Visa banks would underwrite a promotion in which Bank One could take away some of their customers, Mr. O’Donnell said that such competition exists in all card marketing.
“Consumers always have the opportunity to switch cards,” he said. “The competition for cardholders exists every day.”
Bank One’s chief executive officer, James Dimon, said in June that it had already signed up 200,000 customers for the Disney card.
A spokeswoman for Bank One on Thursday would not update that figure, except to say that the program has been “extremely successful.”
Ms. Saeger said Visa does not expect the recent travel slump, which has hurt Disney’s theme park business, to affect the campaign.
“It’s only a factor in that every dollar we make for them and they make for us is more important,” she said. “One of the reasons why Disney has gotten behind us in a big way is because they think it will only be good for their business.”
