After taking a hiatus from television advertisements, Discover Financial Services introduced a campaign this month pegged to the "relaunch" last month of its signature Cashback bonus program with new reward features.
Discover's last television blitz, which featured the fictitious rock band Danger Kitty, apparently did not produce the results the company had wanted, since the ads have been scrapped in favor of a set of vignettes that, like the Danger Kitty series, relies heavily on humor.
In further evidence that the card brand is still trying to find its marketing voice, the two new commercials feature the tagline: "Discover Card's New Cashback Bonus program, where you get paid for the things you buy anyway." It replaces the line, "For the slightly smarter consumer."
Richard P. Lalley, the vice president of advertising and brand management at the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. subsidiary, said the commercials are designed to highlight a new feature that lets cardholders accrue Cashback bonus dollars indefinitely, instead of receiving a check every year. The ads play off that idea by describing what two cardholders are saving for.
"What we are doing is recommitting to a marketing strategy of being the credit card that rewards its customers," Mr. Lalley said. The Cashback bonus reference is "the most distinctive and visible" part of the new tagline, "but we have other rewards, such as paying [cardholders] to use their card for everyday purchases, or valuable offers from promotional partners."
Another spot that is still under development will feature the keychain-sized Discover 2GO card, Mr. Lalley said. The ads will run over the next several months.
So far the unusual-looking product "has been available for anyone who has asked for it," but Discover has not done "a great deal of marketing, since we are working out kinks," Mr. Lalley said. There has been a limited number of direct mail offers, and people can apply for Discover 2GO through a Web site.
Despite the lack of marketing, the number of requests has "far exceeded our goals," according to Mr. Lalley. Reaction to the card "is best described as 'wow,' " he said. "People like to be different."
Part of Discover's latest marketing blitz is a deal to sponsor Todd Bodine's No. 26 car in six Nascar races starting June 2. (Mr. Bodine's previous primary sponsor, Kmart Corp., filed for bankruptcy in January.)
Visa U.S.A. has been an official sponsor of Nascar for years, but Mr. Lalley said Discover's unusual step of sponsoring a single entry does not interfere with Visa's presence. "We are sponsoring a team. Visa takes a different approach, more at the track level."
The card companies are not hurt by each other's sponsorship efforts, as auto racing fans are very supportive of all the sponsors, he said. Nascar is "very sponsor-friendly."
In addition to Nascar, Discover will partner with ESPN for a contest that will offer cardholders a chance to appear on the cable sports channel's "College GameDay" program in January.
"We have had a history in being involved in sponsorships," Mr. Lalley said. "This is our first-ever involvement in motor sports. The driver of that is the incredible growth of Nascar and its popularity. The Winston Cup Nascar series is the second most popular sport behind the NFL in terms of reaching men, middle-American men."
One of the new commercials features a young, single lawyer named Dave Logan who is looking for love and not having much luck. The ads show him on a series of dinner dates with women who admit that they find him boring or weird, or who say that they hate lawyers. To escape, he holds up his Discover card and calls out frantically, "check, please."
Finally, after a half-dozen such encounters, he meets a girl he likes, but all those disastrous dinner dates will not go to waste: He has built up a $160 Cashback bonus that he will someday use for an engagement ring. "Maybe someday soon," the announcer says, as Mr. Logan's face lights up at the thought of spending some time with his new friend, who is also a lawyer.
The second commercial has a similar theme, but the protagonist is Kelly Turner, a harried mother of four adolescent boys, who spends most of her free time buying groceries with her Discover Card and daydreaming about a beach vacation away from the brood.
The announcer tells us that Ms. Turner is saving her Cashback bonus, and currently has over $180. Apparently, four growing boys eat more than a whole parade of 20-something women.
By moving its marketing emphasis back to the Cashback bonus, Discover is retreating to safe ground. Marketing surveys have shown an enduring fondness for the rebate program, which awards customers a portion of their purchases, traditionally in the form of a check mailed once a year. Even though the rebates have dropped over the years from around 2% to its current form of graduated payments of 0.25% to 1%, depending on the size of the purchases, consumers say they still like the program.
Brand Keys Inc., a New York consulting firm, surveys consumers about their loyalty to payment card brands each year, and every year since 1997 Discover has beaten out Visa, American Express, and MasterCard in the rankings. The Cashback program is one of Discover's strengths, the survey's authors say.
"It is important for us to be visible and say we are here," Mr. Lalley said. Future ads may get away from pushing the Cashback bonus and take another tack, he said. "We have a lot of marketing going on. All of it is designed to remind the American consumer if they use the Discover card, it pays."
