Mastercard collaborated with Amazon Ads to Stand Up to Cancer

A leader in financial services

Mastercard is a leading financial services corporation and global payments technology network. Mastercard connects billions of consumers, merchants, financial institutions, governments, and businesses worldwide.

A campaign for a worthy cause

Mastercard was looking for ways to drive awareness and adoption of their “tap-to-pay” feature with US consumers. In addition, they were seeking to increase the reach of their Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) match campaign, in which Mastercard offered a $.01 donation, up to $4MM, to SU2C for every contactless or online payment that a customer made at qualifying restaurants, grocery, transit, and drug stores.

A brand-new solution

In order to create something truly unique, Mastercard collaborated with Amazon Ads and media agency of record, Carat, on a bespoke and interactive audio ads campaign that encouraged customers to use contactless forms of payment – either shopping online or “tap-to-pay” in-store.

The brand wanted to reach Mastercard holders, who typically shop at physical retail locations like grocery stores, drug stores, and pharmacies, and who use mass transit. Mastercard also wanted to appeal to customers interested in philanthropy and charity with their SU2C donation match. They used a combination of Amazon Ads’s in-market and lifestyle audience segments to reach desired customers resembling their audience, like fresh produce and grocery shoppers, and drove engagement with audio marketing by introducing an interactive voice landing page. Voice landing pages provide a convenient and innovative path for customers to engage with brands on Alexa using voice.

Customers who heard the audio ad while streaming Amazon Music on their Alexa-enabled devices could use the Alexa brand CTA: “Alexa, ask Mastercard how I can touch lives?” to respond back and learn more about the campaign and ways to participate. On devices with an accompanying screen, customers received a companion banner ad with the interactive CTA.

This campaign delivered strong results for Mastercard.

This campaign delivered strong results for Mastercard. They drove +5.1% lift in aided awareness, and +10.8% lift in intent to use contactless or touchless features. In addition to awareness and intent, the campaign also drove a +8.1% lift in brand perception for Mastercard1, as a brand that “cares about my safety.”

quoteUpAudio has become an integral component of our day-to-day lives in today’s always connected world, which is why ensuring brand relevance in this channel is an integral component of any media strategy. From integrating our sonic brand into audio content to leveraging podcasts and creating new and unique engagement opportunities with consumers like the Alexa voice landing page, we continue to explore and leverage the variety of audio opportunity that exists today.quoteDown
– Tara Marston, Director, Media Planning, Mastercard

1 Amazon internal data, 2020

Highlights1

  • +5.1% lift in aided brand awareness
  • +8.1% lift in brand attribute "Cares about my safety"
  • +10.8% lift in usage intent for customers who do not currently use cards with touchless payment options