Visa Inc. is making a big Olympic advertising push at the Grand Central Terminal in New York. The company today announced the launch of a month-long campaign at the train station featuring three-dimensional video and static images in the station’s subway corridor using its “Go World” theme focusing on Olympic achievement.
The card brand today also has began to reach out to consumers on YouTube and Facebook, posting videos of commercials and intimate updates on Olympic athletes to promote its sponsorship of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter games and Team Visa athletes.
Visa did not disclose the cost of the campaign.
In the Grand Central terminal, the 3D projection screen is broadcasting Visa’s “Anthem” and “Trip for Life” Go World commercials. Visa estimates 3 million consumers will pass through the terminal during the 28-day campaign. Beginning today, Visa representatives will hand out 3-D glasses throughout the day that enable commuters to properly view the commercials in the terminal.
“This promotion was an exciting opportunity for Visa,” Jennifer Bazante, Visa head of global brand marketing, tells PaymentsSource. “Grand Central Station is a very iconic place that services as vast number of people. This is an opportunity for people to interact with the [advertising features], and it also afforded us the opportunity to do something innovative with the 3D features and video.”
The terminal campaign features wallscapes, some of which are curved and others that go up stairs, and ads on wall beams and columns, she says.
On YouTube, Visa’s Go World channel will debut six commercials featuring Team Visa Vancouver athletes and Olympic legends. They will appear on YouTube before network television.
Starting Feb. 2, Visa’s Go World Facebook page will provide regular Olympic updates on the Team Visa Vancouver athletes leading up to and during the Olympic Winter Games, including behind-the-scenes looks at training, footage filmed by the athletes and photos of them in action.
Visa is only promoting the 3D Go World campaign, which includes featuring Visa’s “Trip for Life” contest to win tickets for the Winter Olympic Games for life, in its home city of San Francisco, New York and Vancouver, though it is reaching the rest of the country through its national advertising, Bazante tells PaymentSource.
Visa has launched outdoor Olympics ad campaigns in San Francisco and Vancouver. In Vancouver, residents can see Go World ads on 35 buses, five Sky Trains and various Sky Train platforms, 80 transit shelters at the Vancouver airport. In San Francisco, the campaign features ads on 125 transit shelters and 25 newsstands across the city
Efforts to secure reactions to the ad campaigns from analysts were not immediately returned.
