Discover Card: Spend Smarter?
I generally try to avoid commenting negatively on campaigns or work created by others. The reasoning being that until one walks a mile in that agency’s shoes (and has to deal with that agency’s client), it’s really not fair to throw stones.
At times, though, in the name of “self-policing,” I just can’t help myself.
Here’s one such example: a national campaign for the Discover Card. Beautifully produced by The Martin Agency, the spots show us glimpses of all the cool stuff we can buy these days: funky furniture, robot vacuums, etc., along with the admonition that “We are a nation of spenders, and sometimes we’re not too smart in how we spend.” (Discover Card: Spend Smarter)
Hey, that’s a unique take for a credit card. Instead of selling us on how many places we can use it, how low our interest rate will be or how we’ll feel like a Big Cheese every time we whip it out, Discover is promising to make us smarter credit consumers. Refreshing.
Trouble is (as we San Franciscans used to say about Oakland), “there’s no there there.” While this is an opportunity for Discover to give us tools that could actually makes us better credit consumers (like a budget helper, the ability to allow us to set a “tough love” credit limit, strategies for paying down credit card debt or even “credit rehab” for those who continually overspend), Discover’s web site just picks at the edges of what could be a winning strategy that could truly engage consumers and have them re-think the role of credit card companies. Upon closer inspection, the company still wants you to spend, spend, and spend, only just with its card.
This gets back to the importance of transparency. To walk the talk. To “be who you say you are.” To rise above the idea that marketing is not so much saying what will appeal to customers, but actually being what will appeal to customers.
The spots look great, though, and might even generate business. The possibilities would have been so much greater, however, if the company lived up to the full potential of the proposition they’re throwing out there.
Posted by Mickey
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