It's a few hours before the New York Yankees play the Tampa Bay Rays on home turf. The excitement is more palpable than usual: Derek Jeter is four hits away from his 3,000th career hit.
Everyone at the MasterCard Batter's Eye Cafe is talking about it.
The venue overlooks center field and is normally open to all. But MasterCard has it cordoned off for a special event that previews the kinds of exclusive experiences available to cardholders through its new Priceless Cities initiative.
The events are designed to drive loyalty by offering something experts say matters more than material goods.
"Affluent consumers are motivated by having unique stories to tell," says Cheryl Guerin, group head for U.S. marketing at MasterCard.
At one end of the cafe, fans are chatting up Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain. His right arm is in a brace because of a torn elbow ligament. Someone asks to take a picture with him. "Yeah, yeah—five bucks," Chamberlain says. They both laugh and mug for the camera as more fans press in.
The sizzle and smell of scallops fill the air as chef Aaron Sanchez, owner of Centrico restaurant in Manhattan, gently places them in a hot pan. Seafood was one of several courses the star of the Food Network show "Chefs vs. City" prepared for the MasterCard guests. "Did you try the ceviche?" someone asks. "It's amazing."
Golf clinics with professional players, priority seating at overbooked restaurants, private dinners prepared by master chefs, and the opportunity to watch the Blue Man Group warm up before a show are the types of experiences MasterCard is offering.
Unlike rewards programs that give free stuff, cardholders pay to participate in many Priceless Cities events. A sold-out screening of the movie "Madagascar" at the Central Park Zoo on August 13 cost $10 a ticket. The Batter's Eye seats at Yankee stadium are $100 a pop.
But there are free things, too, like complimentary tickets to jazz performances at Lincoln Center.
Tom Gilovich, professor of psychology at Cornell University, says MasterCard is onto something here. "The research is pretty clear that we get more enduring enjoyment out of our experiences than our possessions," he says.
But that's not how many of us see it. Think of the person who instinctively rationalizes the purchase of a new flat-screen television, something concrete that lasts for years, over a vacation to Europe that is over in just a week or two.
The reality, though, is that people quickly get used to having the television, whereas they keep getting enjoyment out of telling stories about the trip of a lifetime. "Experiences really become a part of who you are," Gilovich says. "We are sort of the sum total of our experiences in a way that we aren't a total of our material goods."
MasterCard has long tapped into this dynamic with its "Priceless" advertising tagline. The Priceless Cities program builds on the idea. "I think in many ways it's a brilliant program," Gilovich says.
Some experiences offered through the program are only available to World and World Elite cardholders—in other words, the most affluent customers. But MasterCard expects to eventually create offerings that would be geared toward any credit or debit customer.
Priceless Cities launched in New York in July and rolls out to other cities nationwide and internationally over the next year. The goal is to target not only residents, but also travelers to the cities where different experiences are offered, Guerin says.
Each city will get its own page on MasterCard's website—the New York page is at www.mastercard.com/pricelessny. Customers purchase tickets for the events online.
An ad campaign, including television, radio, print, outdoor and digital media tailored to each market, will help drive traffic to those Web pages, Guerin says. A social-media component includes interactive games. One involves seats from the old Yankees Stadium, which have been hidden around New York at different landmarks. Cardholders who find the seats can use a mobile app to scan a bar code. This checks the cardholders into the seat's location on FaceBook Places and enters them to win a pair of Yankees VIP tickets.
Bloggers also are getting invited to some events to help spread the word for MasterCard. NY City Mama and NY Sports Digest were among those represented at the Batter's Eye event, for example.
Though the Yankees would lose that day, and Jeter wouldn't get his 3,000th hit until the next game, the enthusiasm of the attendees suggested that they'd be talking about the experience long after, just as MasterCard envisioned.
