Walt Disney Co.'s selection of Visa and Bank One Corp. as payment card partners won the bank and the card association access to one of the most recognizable brands anywhere.
Perhaps just as sweet for Visa and Bank One was the fact that by winning, they also unseated American Express Co. from its long-standing position as the "official card" of Disney parks.
Visa executives called the deal, announced Tuesday, a rare opportunity to join forces with one of the world's leading brands. "We think that this is going to be a category killer," said Carl Pascarella, the president and chief executive of Visa U.S.A.
Rebecca Saeger, the executive vice president of brand marketing at Visa, said, "We're viewing this in the same way we view the Olympics," which Visa also sponsors. Visa took over the Olympics sponsorship from American Express in 1986, after Amex did not bid to renew its contract.
Joan Fisher, an American Express spokeswoman, said that her company decided not to renew its 10-year-old contract as the "official card" of Disney amusement parks, adding that the decision was mutual. That relationship runs through the end of this year.
American Express has at least four other cobrand relationships and will keep seeking high-profile partnerships, she said. "We will continue to look at brands that make sense for our customers," she said.
MasterCard said it was in discussions with Disney, but walked away after deciding that the benefits to its membership were unclear.
The deal between Visa and Disney is a multiyear sponsorship arrangement that begins Jan. 1 and grants Visa the right to create marketing programs using Disney characters and logos and to involve all of Disney's properties, which include not only theme parks, cruise lines, resorts, and retail stores, but also the ABC television network, ESPN, and other media outlets.
The tipping points for Disney, sources involved in the negotiations said, were that Visa credit and debit cards are available to a wider swath of consumers than American Express cards; that Visa emphasizes credit rather than charge cards for consumers, and that Visa approached Disney with a bank that wanted to issue a cobranded card, which American Express has never offered.
Ken Green, a spokesman for Disney, said that though the preferred card deal and other marketing arrangements with American Express will end, Disney properties will continue to accept all brands of payment card.
Ms. Saeger said that all Visa banks will be able to benefit from the relationship. Under a "pass-through" arrangement, any Visa issuer can use Visa's Disney promotions to market its own products, she said. "These deals don't come along too often, which is one of the reasons we're so excited about this," she said.
A separate deal between Bank One and Disney gives the Chicago banking company the exclusive rights to market cobranded Disney/Bank One/Visa cards - and to put Mickey Mouse's picture on them. Philip Heasley, the chairman of Bank One's credit card division, said the card will offer rewards toward Disney vacations and merchandise.
"When you have the opportunity to affiliate a household with Disney, suddenly the interest level goes from 'ho-hum, another credit card offer,' to a destination experience that's a very big deal," Mr. Heasley said in a telephone interview from Paris, where he and Mr. Pascarella were attending a Visa International board meeting. He said that 87% of all U.S. families buy at least one Disney product a year; Ms. Saeger said that a third of households buy seven or more Disney products a year.
Mr. Heasley, whose division already counts among its cobrand partners United Air Lines Inc., British Airways, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN network, the America Online division of AOL Time Warner Inc., and Yahoo Inc., called Disney "an important family niche" that Bank One wanted to fill.
"I think Disney was an obvious exception to the great brands that have a cobranding relationship," he said, adding that there were perhaps three or four other such brands, and "we're knocking on those doors right now."
Mr. Pascarella said Disney complements Visa's other sponsorship deals, which include not only the Olympics but also the National Football League, Triple Crown horse racing, Nascar, and Broadway theaters. He said Visa will eventually use Disney in promotions worldwide.
Disney's priority was "what the three of us could do to lift all three businesses," Mr. Pascarella said. Cobranding was "very important" to Disney, which was impressed by Visa's work with Bank One on the United relationship and others, he said. "What Disney wants to do is take this to the next level, and I think in recent years it hasn't been optimized."
