Visa Canada is touting some spring break “debitnations” in a campaign promoting its Visa Debit product.
The spring-break themed campaign from BBDO and Proximity Canada inserts the word “debit” into names of popular travel destinations to create place names such as “Debitminican Republic” and “Orlandebit.”
The campaign is intended to position the two-year-old Visa Debit product as a solution to the limitations of bank-issued debit cards, which often aren’t accepted outside of Canada or for online purchases.
Canadians are among the most avid debit-card users in the world, with the average citizen completing 116 debit transactions in 2010, according to Interac. That ranks fourth behind Sweden (150), the United States (141) and the Netherlands (131) and just ahead of Australia (101).
In 2011, the most recent year for which statistics are available, Canadians completed more than 2.4 billion debit-card transactions totaling approximately $104.8 billion.
Brenda Woods, head of marketing for Visa in Toronto, said the campaign objective is twofold: explaining what the Visa Debit product is and its availability in markets not well served by existing debit products.
The ads also promote Visa Debit as a solution for online purchases through the use of fake URLs such as PayOnlineWithDebitForThatTuneYouCantRecallButCantGetOutOfYourHead.com and BuyBootsOnlineWithDebitToReplaceThePairYourSisterBorrowedPermantly.com.
The campaign is running online on mass exposure sites and sites related to shopping and travel, such as TripAdvisor.ca and Amazon.ca. The out-of-home component includes airport advertising and transit advertising in Vancouver and the Greater Toronto Area (subway, streetcar and bus interiors). The ads are purposely placed in environments where people will have time to read and absorb the message, said Woods.
Woods said that the ads, all of which are placed on vibrant backgrounds, are intended to disrupt consumer thinking about the limitations of debit cards. “Canadians don’t usually think about using their debit card to shop outside of Canada or to make online purchases,” said Wood. The ads are accompanied by the message “Start getting more from debit. Pay directly from your bank account, when you shop online and around the world, with Visa debit.”
“Canadians have long associated Visa with credit, and Visa Debit is very different,” said Woods. “Our first priority is to help people understand that it’s actually money directly from your bank account and you can use it wherever Visa Debit is accepted.” The product’s key selling point, she said, is its “increased functionality” compared with bank-issued debit cards.
Visa introduced Visa Debit in the fall of 2010, and major banks including CIBC, RBC and TD now offer the product.
The campaign is an extension of a campaign first developed for Visa by its former agency, TBWA. BBDO/Proximity was awarded the Visa business last fall following a global creative review. Media for the campaign was handled by OMD Canada.
Woods wouldn’t divulge how many Visa Debit cards have been issued or how many transactions have been completed with the cards, but said it has done “very well” for the company since its 2010 introduction.
Debit is an “emerging” category for credit card companies, said Woods. “We’ve got lots of cards out in the marketplace and we’re very pleased with the number of Canadians that have it, but there’s still opportunity and still opportunity for people to use it more frequently.”
