Visa Case Write Up
Visa Sponsorship Marketing
This case presented the successful marketing strategy utilized by Visa International until now, which has made the company a leader in the global market of payment tools. Visa owes this success to the investments in different sports sponsorships that bring specific benefits to the brand and to the following activities to support those sponsorships. This means that, Visa studies deeply the sport event or property that it wants to sponsor and evaluate it to know if it could help the brand to achieve the goal for a set period of time. For instance, Visa had the goal to convey a message of uniqueness among its competitors, and it was reached by sponsoring the Rugby World Cup, because this specific event communicated passion and exclusivity (Chang, 2003). However, one considerable risk is that it might be difficult for the sponsor to choose the right message to position the company and the right sport property or event to support it in front of the fans and customers eyes (Tribble, 2002). For this reason, Visa and successful sponsors evaluate the sponsorship investments by comparing the results with the company situation before the sponsorship.
Sport Sponsorships are complemented by other marketing activities in order to make them effective. Promotions are one of the most important activities run at the same time of sports sponsorships. For example, Visa ran several promotions while sponsored the Olympics Games such as Olympics-related sweepstakes. This promotion rewarded loyal users by being part of the sweepstake to win tickets for the event by continuously using their credit cards. This promotion also probably attracted switchers because of the great prize and because skill and payment were not needed (Schultz, 1999). In addition, this promotion could target a very broad market, an advantage since globalization has influenced sponsorships too.
On the other hand, sports sponsorships