New cards give full credit to rugby fans

Grant McKenzie (left) and Iain Jamieson with one of the new Super 14 Visa cards.

Shoppers are being offered a new justification for swiping the credit card: Regional rugby pride.

Westpac has launched Super 14-branded Visa cards targeted at followers of the competition's five New Zealand franchises.

Auckland Blues marketing manager Grant McKenzie said the credit cards offered benefits rugby fans would find relevant. They would also generate money for the franchises and their member provincial unions.

The Blues, Chiefs, Hurricanes, Crusaders and Highlanders franchises will market the cards at Super 14 games and through their fan databases.

"There will be as many cards as our supporters want there to be," McKenzie said.

Gimmicks associated with the new cards include a prize pool linked to team performance, tickets to next year's World Cup, a cheaper interest for purchases made during the Super 14 season and cheaper interest for cardholders signed up to support the competition's winning team.

The franchises receive half of the annual card membership fees and a portion of interest paid on the cards.

Westpac's head of cards, Ross Jackson, would not say what target had been set for signing up cardholders.

"It will basically rest on the strengths and benefits that have been built into it. We've made those as strong as possible and the rest will follow," Jackson said.

Visa Country manager Iain Jamieson said with Visa having sponsored the World Cup since 1995, the company could "bring to the table some prize pool that will be of value to the Super 14 cardholders".

The use of rugby as a credit card hook is not new. BNZ and MasterCard launched an All Blacks-branded card in 2003, in part aimed at leveraging MasterCard's All Blacks sponsorship.

Jackson said the new Super 14 card concept was different.

"We haven't really entered into comparing it with other cards. We're more looking at those supporters who are aligned to the franchises."

Simon Arkwright, of Sport Research Group, an international sport marketing and sponsorship consultancy, said until now MasterCard's sponsorship of the All Blacks had been the country's only high-profile credit card rugby sponsorship.

"MasterCard have strongly communicated that they are the one credit card clearly associated with top-level rugby in New Zealand. The launch of the rugby franchise Visa cards changes that dynamic substantially."

While MasterCard had used its sponsorship primarily to build brand profile, Visa's strategy was to change customer behaviour by offering rewards to supporters and their favourite Super 14 team, Arkwright said.

"The fans benefit directly from the good performance of their chosen team when Visa rewards them with a lower interest rate. This builds a closer bond between the fans and the team, and also between the fans and Visa." 


Global makeover on the cards

The credit card giant famous for being "everywhere you want to be" is running up its own enormous bill changing its millions of logos around the world.

Visa has given itself a global brand makeover which in New Zealand alone involves a sweeping project to change signage displayed at 100,000 merchants, 1900 ATM machines and, as they expire, on two million cards.

An association owned by 21,000 member financial institutions, Visa has not significantly altered its blue and gold "flag" logo since the organisation was founded 30 years ago.

It says dropping the horizontal stripes from the old logo will give it a more contemporary image across the range of technologies and products it is now associated with. Visa country manager Iain Jamieson said it was expected to take until about 2008 to complete the New Zealand rebrand.

Over the next two months, 14,000 merchants in "high foot-traffic" areas would become the first to have their in-store signage changed. Jamieson said global research into the new brand look had started eight years ago and included polling 1000 New Zealand cardholders.

"The feedback was unanimous across the world that it was preferred, against the old [Visa] brand and against the competing brands of MasterCard and Amex."

Dave Bibby, head of integrated marketing communication at AUT, said some rebranding exercises were aimed at radically changing customers' perceptions. Visa, however, was undergoing a more restrained design-focused change which he compared with last year's "subtle but effective" Warehouse rebrand.