Mastercard's CMO wanted to transform marketing to better measure effectiveness and serve commercial objectives. Marketing evolved from Marketing 1.0 focusing on emotions to Marketing 4.0 leveraging digital connections. Key campaigns included Priceless Cities providing exclusive experiences, Priceless Surprises creating special moments people were passionate about, and Priceless Causes supporting charitable causes through spending. The Priceless Engine platform delivered personalized offers through stories and data to drive engagement and transactions with merchants and banks. Evaluations found the campaigns increased spending, brand preference, and were effective in engaging customers, though competitors could potentially copy the approach.

1. MarketingTransformation
at Mastercard
Bitcoins
Sarath Chandra Marthi
Vamsi KumarTuraga
RahulTiwari
Vibhuda Kedia
Saurav Dey
Tejas Gijare

2. Case Context
• CMO, Rajamannar (Raja)
• Consumer & Payment industry landscape dramatically changing
• Less with more – Global marketing budget reduced from 10% to 7.5% of
revenues despite 30% growth
• CEO wants metrics to measure marketing effectiveness
• Transform marketing at Mastercard to a more comprehensive function for
serving its commercial objectives

3. Company Background
• Founded in the 1960s by a group of banks to facilitate bank transactions.
Headquartered in Purchase, NewYork
• Processes transactions in 210 countries in 150 currencies
• World’s second largest payments network. 29.9% share of the $90 billion
global credit card market.Visa 45.6%
• Enabled card and other electronic transactions to be cleared, authorised and
settled
• Revenues from interchange fee

4. Re-Imagining Marketing
• “There are some things money can’t buy. For
everything else, there’s MasterCard”
• The campaign has been running for 17 years
now, and expanded to more than 200 countries.
In a sense “Priceless” became a viral, social
campaign years before there was a social
media.
End
Customers
Merchant
Partners
Banks
•Stressing the superior
nature of the product
Marketing 1.0
•Emotions
•Even to the extent of
excluding product
features from the ad
•Initial Priceless ad of ‘97
Marketing 2.0 •Advent of Data Driven
architecture
•Analyzed data to target
customers with precision,
relevance and
timelessness
Marketing 3.0
•Connected World
Connected Customers
•Digital Revolution and
Social Media Tsunami
Marketing 4.0

5. The “Priceless Possibilities”……….
Priceless Cities
1. Delivered exclusive one-of-a-kind
experiences to MasterCard's affluent
customer segment, those holding
Platinum World or World Elite Cards
2. Singing a duet with Beyoncé during her
global tour
3. Extended participation to its banks and
merchant partners
Priceless Surprises
1. Engage MasterCard's mass segment
in a similar way, by creating a special
experience that would convert them
into brand ambassadors
2. Focus on nine areas cardholders were
most passionate about: music, sports,
travel, shopping, culinary, environment
,arts and culture, movies, and
philanthropy
Priceless Causes
1. Was a means for MasterCard’s to
support its cardholders’ charitable and
philanthropic impulses
2. Feed African school children when
cardholders spent over a certain amount
support Ethiopian school children
Support Ethiopian school children
Contributing one cent for every $10
cardholders spent dining out during
eight weeks of summer
Priceless Specials
1. Collaborate with merchants to offer
mass-market cardholders discounts and
other unexpected treats in the course of
their shopping
2. Lounge access, jumping the queue,
“buy one, get one free”, advanced ticket
sales, or access before the general
public
3. All offers were merchant-funded;
MasterCard funded the promotional
and media spending

6. Priceless in Action
Priceless Engine:
An innovative new platform for marketing that allows the brand to provide its bank partners
with the deep insights that help them deliver the right offers to their customers at the right time
Seven Step Digital Engine: Hugh Jackman’s Priceless Special
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRy1ITaeEXU
• Share a story about
this amazing person
for the chance to
reunite with them this
NewYear’s Eve as a
Priceless Surprise....”
• To create an
emotional spark with
people by encouraging
them to share a story
• This campaign invited
viewers to share their
own memories
• Mastercard received
thousands of stories
from the consumers
• Mastercard used the
content to create
customized merchant
offers to attract
consumers
• Using demographics and
market data, company
convinced merchants to
participate in the campaign
• Singapore was a top shopping
& entertainment spot for
Indian consumers.
• Partnered with Resorts World
Sentosa
1. Emotional Spark 2. Engagement 3. Right Merchant Right Offer

7. • These results
encourages bank and
merchant partner’s to
invest heavily on this
campaign
• Mastercard had to
coordinate across
different divisions of
each of its bank
partners
• To make it more
popular, campaign
encourages people to
share stories on Social
Media
• Contests and Winners
• Performance was measured
by brand metrics
• Hugh Jackman’s campaign
reached 50 million
consumers
• This generated several
million leads
5. Amplification 6. Engagement 7. Incremental transactions
• This campaign enhanced customer engagement and relationship with the brand
• Merchants started seeing Mastercard as a marketing partner
• Major advantage of the Engine was its applicability to varied merchant and bank
objectives. For e.g. Singapore tourist board, Standard Chartered, HDFC in India
• Raja extended the digital engine to Europe, Latin America and U.S
• Merchant offers were
then tested and refined
in real time through A/B
testing
• Each offer was tested
based onWebsite click
rate and Engagement
rate
4. Optimizing Offers
The After-Effects

8. Priceless Cities (Boston)
• Featured one-of-a kind experiences to engage affluent cardholders.
• Boston ranked 6th in most affluent population in US and was among top 10 US
citiess with high gross dollar spending and spending by foreign cardholders.
• Between April and September 2016, the company ran several Priceless Cities
events in Boston. It won JetBlue as a co-branding partner and as issuing bank for
the campaign. E.g Sponsorship of Major League Baseball team
• Under the promotional period, customers were offered experiences like culinary,
shopping, sports, arts and hotel themes. e.g Red Sox events, Best in House room
service
After Effects:
• Increased spending, transaction and top of wallet behaviour among participants
• Increased brand preference

9. Priceless Causes (SU2C)
• Partnered since 2010 to fund research and treatment
• Mastercard focussed on restaurant spending in 8 week summer program. It
donated one cent to SU2C to every $10 of cardholders bill on dining..
• Issuers played a significant role with 20 issuers becoming part of radio
campaign and rest using resources to reach 33 million cardholders.
• In 2016, mastercard integrated campaign with Priceless Cities dining
experience and sponsorship with Major League Baseball.
• E.g. Chicago Cubs win in 2016World series.
After Effects
Significant growth in restaurant spending outpacing overall category

10. Questions
• Do you think the marketing campaigns at Mastercard are effective?
• What should the company do next?
• Should Mastercard signup a celebrity singer costing millions of dollars?
• Banks and merchants continued to spend a large portion of their marketing
budget on traditional promotions, such as discounts, air miles – could he
convince them to shift more of their budget to the Priceless campaign?
• Did the Priceless campaign provide a sustainable competitive advantage to
Mastercard, or could its competitors copy it quickly?

11. After Effects – Priceless
Cities

12. After Effects – Priceless Causes

13. Wasn’t it Priceless?