CONNECT- New marketing program for credit card companies

One of the biggest challenges for credit card companies is to increase spends on the credit card. In order to achieve it, they do regular tie-ups with restaurants, pubs, bowling alleys and what not to offer discounts to customers.Almost every credit card company does it, hence there is too much clutter and commotion that even the greatest offer probably gets lost.More important the entire communication is one way and is very boring. As Seth Godin puts it" If people aren't discussing your products, your services, your cause, your movement or your career, there's a reason. The reason is that you're boring.


Is there are refreshingly new way to increase card spends? Are credit card companies ready to look at some trends that will help them create remarkable promotions to increase spends?


The trends:

• Thanks to social media, consumers are looking for every opportunity to network or to build relationship
• Call it location based services or Geotagging is getting popular. Twitter has launched this service by end of Nov 2009
• Consumers are looking for opportunities to spend
• If there is a web 2.0, marketing 2.0, Me 2.0 then there should also be a Promotions 2.0.. How can consumers generate promotions/offers?

Typically, every credit card company looks at discount offer as 'hero' in the communication( 20% off at the Taj, 15% at the Spa and how many more 'Me too' offers that fills up your letter box or email box),I wish to turn the whole approach on its head. If the consumers are looking for opportunities to meet/spend, Lets " CONNECT'  them. This would mean that the  occasion for the meeting should be the primary focus( 'hero') and let the discounts offered by the card company be incidental. Would like to explain this approach through a simple example. Assume I have an XYZ Bank credit card. Lets call the marketing program as " CONNECT" 

• XYZ Bank should have all offers in a website
• The portal should give me a choice to create an CONNECT ecard for the occasion
• Let's say I want to meet up with my college friend Ashok and I know he is the Chennai.
• The website should have multiple card choices ranging from formal to whacky depending on the occasion
• Once I create the ecard, I should be able to pick up a location from the list in the website.
• The ecard thus created will probably read like" Hey Buddy... Long time, Lets meet up at Anokhi( a popular coffee shop in Chennai) ". The Anokhi's address will be pushed into the ecard automatically.
• Once the card is ready, it will sent to Ashok's email id and to his mobile as SMS.
• XYZ Bank is offering a discount at Anokhi but the hero in the consumer generated communication is the meeting with the friend. The discount offer becomes incidental

If we have to take this consumer generated promotion to the next level, thanks to the proliferation of GPS enabled smart phones, an application like Loopt will help identify both my location and Ashok's location. Using this geo info, the creditcard company can come up with auto suggest CONNECT Cards based on location to meet, occasion and the availability of  discount offer. Using this info, I can send an ecard to Ashok and am sure it will sweep him of his feet. To reinforce the core of the program, the meeting between friends is the hero,discount at the store is incidental. The card company will stand to gain through this innovative promotion of ecards.

Waiting to send my ecard and create an occasion to build relationship. Truly remarkable..Lets CONNECT