Card companies have used celebrities and fun characters in their brand advertising for years to hawk their products as spokespeople, but integrating the celebrity brand into a card product may be better strategically for card-program success, one observer contends.
And promoting prepaid cards is a particularly good fit because of the opportunities to tie marketing with retail deals that connect with the celebrity, Ron Shevlin, senior analyst for Boston-based Aite Group, said in an interview June 22.
“On the prepaid side, there are huge opportunities for celebrities,” said Shevlin. “I think the Kardashian Kard could have been the most brilliant product ever.”
The Kardashian Kard could have promoted discounts from advertisers for the TV show “Keeping Up With The Kardashians,” which could have given advertisers actual results of supporting the show based on the number of consumers who got the card and used it at those retailers.
However, the product was short-lived because of a dispute over the high upfront fees associated with the product (
Though the Kardashian Kard did not pan out, other card companies that link with a socially conscious group such as the rock band U2 could get consumers to feel good about having the card because they are associated with the band, Shevlin surmised. Such a card could offer discounts on the band’s music or a reduction in fees if cardholders reload their accounts on a regular basis, he suggested.
One example of a company already integrating a celebrity with its product is SocialWise Inc’s BillMyParents, which offers a prepaid MasterCard promoted by extreme athlete Rob Dyrdek (
Evaluating the effectiveness of cards’ spokespeople is tricky, Shevlin said. “You can’t draw any conclusions about spokespeople without understanding what the company is trying to do,” he said.
For example, if an unknown company uses a celebrity such as talk-show mogul Oprah Winfrey, it portrays credibility. But for large financial companies that generally are well-known brands, using celebrities gets attention, Shevlin notes.
“Those companies use celebrities to cut through the clutter,” he explained.
A good example of that tack is Capital One Financial Corp., which uses several options to promote its Venture credit card, including “30 Rock” actor Alec Baldwin (see photo), a host of feisty Vikings and a goat.
To associate its brand with serious credibility, investment firm TD Ameritrade, for example, uses former “Law & Order” actor Sam Waterston to lend credibility to its products and services, said Shevlin. That company also has used other actors from the show to promote its products over the years, including Steven Hill and Jerry Orbach.
There also are what Shevlin termed “risky” efforts to use spokespeople to promote financial services.
Little Payday, an online payday-loan company operated by Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Blue Global Media, uses a diminutive adult film star named Bridget the Midget as its official spokesperson. Hooking consumers is key to gaining new business in that market, which may justify the shock value in using such a spokesperson, observers say.
A relative success story of an unexpectedly popular spokesperson involves Discover Financial Services’ “Peggy” character, which has garnered much attention in social media in recent months (
The character’s mission is to point out the inefficiencies of fictitious “bad” credit card company USA Prime Credit by juxtaposing with the benefits of the Discover card. Because so many consumers resonate with the complaint of poor customer service, the character has taken on a life of his own through Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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