Card Ads That Draw Businesses In
Who says that commerce (or e-commerce) is boring? With the ability to use celebrities, quirky images, and catchy slogans – anything is possible. This blog post is dedicated to those who do it best: American Express, VISA, and MasterCard. We will also briefly discuss what each of those cards can bring into a business setting.
American Express won’t keep you waiting
A while ago we took a closer look at American Express and their Centurion Card. The brand has a card dedicated to those who do business (or have personal expenses) with a bang. Although most of us know American Express as the brand with the cool celebrity TV commercials, they also put a lot of effort in using normal ads as a means of communicating their offers. Because nothing draws in customers quite like an image of someone we admire…. An image where they show their humanity and their likeness to us ‘normals’.
The Centurion card may seem unreachable to some, with a $2,500 yearly fee and an entrance fee of $7,500, this titanium and invitation-only card is for over the top payers. However it comes with a lot of perks, which we discussed here: So You Think Pepsi Is A Celebrity Magnet? (as a bonus, you’ll also find funny video ads from AmEx).
Smaller but still better
If you’re more of the small business and not “millionaire, A-list mogul” you should really look into American Express Corporate Cards. They’re offered in 40 countries, have specific products (Corporate Meeting Card, Corporate Purchasing, and the Business Travel Account) You have access to American Express @ Work where you can look into your employees’ expenditure data, access the program management capabilities, look at your online statements, reports, and data integration products.
AmEx has also created other extraordinary cards for those who want more than just a simple payments and cards. Cards like the American Express Red (It is now no longer available), which was featured in the UK, allowed for 1% of each spent fund to go to Global Fund. Cause marketing was also first started by AmEx. In 1983 American Express has decided that for every transaction made with their cards, one cent would be given to the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, the project ended up raising $1.7 million!
Life Takes VISA
Those colorful ads make you want to see what you can buy and build off of, right? VISA has taken everyday objects that we buy (or sell) and made them the central point of their ads. Who wouldn’t want to see what they can achieve (in this case, buy) in their life with this credit card? If you’re a fancy business A-Lister that enjoys the bigger and better like AmEx Centurion owners – VISA has a Black Card for you! It may not be as iconic as the Centurion Card but it still has perks you can’t refuse. For just $495 per year you can enjoy cash-back bonuses, worldwide expenditures, 24 h concierge service and gifts, insurance for your travels (from luggage to cars), and most of all business services and VIP airport lounges. And those aren’t even all the features! Sure, you may not get a personal shopper at Gucci like Centurions do, but as a business owner you probably care more about your travel and worldwide expenditure bonuses.
Smaller but signature
VISA offers many different cards for businesses. From small business to those who want to have a signature (customer) card. If you’re the signature type, you can count on no liability, concierge services, travel and emergency assistance, and bigger purchasing power. However, with VISA Business you can enjoy purchasing convenience, improved cash flow, savings on business products and services, reporting tools, and separate personal and business expenses, just to name a few.
For everything else, there’s MasterCard
Life is full of moments that are simply priceless and MasterCard know that, however, if you’re in need of creating those moments by buying things to make them happen – use your MasterCard! At least that’s what we’re told by the card giant. This ad campaign reached iconic levels, people all over the world use this slogan and parody it on a daily basis.
But what if you’e a business? MasterCard has created numerous solutions for you! From Giant corporations to small professionals, there is something for everybody. However, we are going to focus on the smaller and professional business who gain from MasterCard:
As the owner of a Professional MasterCard you can rely on easy tracing and reporting, better cash flow, global acceptance, zero liability, easy savings, bail bond services, and travel assistance. You don’t have to worry that all your data will be made of unreadable charts, you can track and separate business from personal expenses. If you’re more on the corporate side you can also take advantage of many services one of which is the ‘mastercoverage’ which helps big companies prevent employee misuse of company cards.
Card Ads aside, what do I choose?
What you settle on depends on what your business model is like and what fees are most reasonable to you. You should do a research and compare of all the fees. It’s not easy to just post a fee for each of these credit cards in a blog post because each business is an individual case and each card company has different solutions for different needs. You may start off with a MasterCard Professional card, but eventually you’ll decide that your business is ready for a VISA Black Card. Who knows, maybe you’ll be the Steve Jobs and your business will be a mogul in need of an American Express Corporate of maybe even Centurion card!
Remember, dream big and shoot for the moon!
