Visa’s first major Brazil 2014 campaign leverages memories of World Cup past and features an unlikely brand ambassador pairing of Italian legend Paolo Rossi and former France superstar Zinedine Zidane.
Led by an early December TV spot revolving around a Brazilian barber’s childhood World Cup memories, the initiative’s cut through lies in its focus on the Brazilian team’s failures and rivals rather than its successes and legends.
The commercial’s creative sees the barber reminded of his disappointing tournament memories when his customer hands over his Visa card and the hairdresser realises he has been shaving a (grey- haired) Rossi – the Italian striker who scored a hat-trick in Italy’s 3-2 win over Brazil at the World Cup in 1982.
The ad ends with a twist that continues the theme, as the next customer turns out to be former France captain Zidane – who led his nation to victory over Brazil in both the 1998 and 2006 World Cups.
The campaign, created for Visa’s head of marketing in Latin American and the Caribbean Adrian Farina, carries with the tagline:
‘Uma Copa do Mundo da FIF no Brasil é como Visa. Todos são bem-vindos / A FIFA World Cup in Brazil is like Visa. All are welcome.’
It also ends with a matching hashtag:
‘#BemVindos / #AllWelcome
Online, the payments brand in Brazil is also currently running a customer competition to win 10 pairs of tickets to the World Cup. Customers need to simply register for the competition and then use their card to be entered into a draw.
The prizes range from simple gifts to tournament tickets.
Comment
Leveraging Brazil’s unrivalled World Cup heritage will be a key feature of much World Cup 2014 marketing, but Visa’s fresh take on this approach is to focus on footballing failures rather than triumphs.
The commercial’s underlying insight into the game is that one of the true beauties of sport is that it blends both the live moments and the memories.
The message carries a form of double meaning; it acts both like a Brazil tourist body slogan as well as a Visa customer invite.
This slightly soft and humorous approach may be a response to 2012’s criticism of its Olympic Games work in London which saw it not only run strict exclusivity on Olympic Games payment systems, but also promote this fact in some of its marketing.
For further details of Visa’s London 2012 work see previous case studies:
Some marketers (and customers) questioned whether this rigid and exclusive approach to sponsorship actually made the Olympic experience tougher (rather than easier) for some Olympic fans.
Visa is one of six global FIFA partners and its international rights span the financial services category for all FIFA World Cup activities.
Unlike the Olympics (and more like some of its other partnerships such as the NFL), Visa is positioned as the ‘preferred’ method of payment for the World Cup.
Links
All Welcome TV Spot YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abfLBGAh3wg
Visa Brazil Website
https://www.visa.com.br
@VisaBR
#BemVindos
