How Did Visa Stay In The Show After More Than 30 Years Of Cooperation With The Olympic Games?

On the last Friday night of March, Shanghai was still drizzle. The pedestrians outside Pinghu park were not very much, but there was a faint sound of music coming.

This is the main show in the 2019 autumn winter fashion week in Shanghai. The new opening party is being held.

Walking into the temporary "greenhouse" will find that almost all the fashionable people in the city have been dispatched.

They shuttle around the corner, taking wine, clinking glasses, talking and taking photos.

Their smiling faces were lit by neon lights at the booth of the sponsors.

Payment technology company Visa is one of the sponsors of stall.

The dark blue mirror lighting device attracted many people to take pictures and punch cards. Some people also looked at the exclusive Visa code for Shanghai fashion week launched by Shopbop, an e-commerce website.

An hour ago, Visa sponsored designer Gong Ligang just released the latest 8ON8 brand series, one of which was embroidered with Visa brand logo.

Probably few people can imagine that a payment technology company like Visa will also become a sponsor of fashion week.

After all, compared with Shanghai fashion week sponsor M.A.C and Paris L'OREAL, Visa is not much associated with fashion industry.

In fact, since 2017, Visa has not only sponsored the fashion week in Shanghai, but also cooperated with New York fashion week and Melbourne Fashion Festival.

In addition to setting up booths at the main show in Shanghai, Visa placed a non paid vending machine in the lobby of Spring Studio fashion week in New York fashion week. Visa, in the exhibition hall of the Melbourne royal exhibition hall, started an attempt to "show up or buy" in the exhibition hall.

In business sponsorship, Visa is not new, but many people always associate Visa with sports.

What impressed us most is its origin from the Olympic Games. In 1986, it became one of the first members of the TOP plan (Olympic Global Partnership Program).

Up to now, it has been a sponsorship partner of the Olympic Games for 33 consecutive years, and its sponsorship contract with the Olympic Games has been extended to 2032.

To some extent, Visa's sponsorship history is the history of the brand's global influence.

Visa initially sponsored the Olympic Games at the time of the Olympic Committee President Peter Yuberrose opened a series of commercialization operations for the Olympic Games.

John A. Davis's sports marketing: Sports Marketing: Creating Long Term Value wrote that in 1985, the share of Visa card in the global credit card market was only 20.3%, not the largest payment brand in the world.

After three years of cooperation with International Olympic Committee, the global credit card of Visa has increased by 18%.

According to Nelson's 2015 global bank card report, Visa card accounts for 55.52% of the total consumption of the world, of which Visa credit card share is 20.02%.

According to data from Trefis, the share of Visa card in the US market has reached 52.7% in January 2018.

Tasting the sweetness of Olympic marketing, Visa has gradually expanded the scope of cooperation in sports competitions.

Its other well-known sports sponsorship partner is FIFA.

In the world cup and other football matches held by the association, Visa can often be seen in the enclosure of the green field.

Visa pictures from the World Cup: Sportsnet

However, there is no need to say much about the fact that sports marketing is mainly aimed at sports enthusiasts, most of whom are male consumers.

In other words, if Visa only sponsors sporting events, it will lose some of the marketing opportunities.

"Now many people have a very high passion for fashion, and we want to participate in this passion and attract a lot of men and women consumers."

Visa Jac Philips, general manager of the market department in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, told the interface fashion.

It was she who decided to sponsor the Melbourne Fashion Festival in 2018 on behalf of Visa.

Before Philips, Jin Yudong, general manager of Visa Greater China, put forward the idea of brand cross the fashion world earlier.

In October 2017, under the promotion of Kim Yu winter, Visa opened the 2018 spring summer Shanghai fashion week and formally launched the fashion marketing strategy.

However, Visa's performance in fashion week is rather low-key.

Jin Yudong said he decided to start sponsorship cooperation in the fashion week of Shanghai fashion week. It was a "marketing scene to avoid objectionable" after discussing with the Organizing Committee of fashion week.

"For example, when the brand is doing sports marketing, if it is very exaggerated, very commercial, or doing something contrary to the spirit of sports, it will produce a negative rebound, I think cross border fashion is also the same."

She said.

Before joining Visa, Kim Yu Dong worked as a sponsor brand Pepsi Cola in Shanghai fashion week for many years.

Past experience laid the foundation for her cooperation with Visa fashion week in Shanghai.

But the difference between the industry and core products and services also determines that not all experience can be copied.

The organizers of fashion week in New York, Melbourne and Shanghai are different from audiences.

Visa has different situations and demands in related markets.

This requires Visa to cooperate with the three fashion week.

For example, in sponsoring the latest two seasons of New York fashion week, Visa has launched a clothing beauty vending machine that works with designers such as Rebecca Minkoff, in order to promote the "non payment" function of Visa cards, that is, no need to swipe cards, just drop the card close to the POS machine to complete the payment method of consumption.

Taking into account the great momentum of the American women's affirmative movement in New York and its place, Visa, in addition to its preference for collaborations with designers who are the main force in women's power, has also promised to donate the vending machine to public welfare organizations that support women's entrepreneurship.

In Melbourne, where the non payment acceptance is very high, the marketing focus of Fashion Festival is to promote mobile payment.

Because Melbourne Fashion Festival is almost entirely for consumers, mobile payment has become the foundation of Fashion Festival.

It is with the support of Visa that Melbourne Fashion Festival can be launched in a timely fashion, namely the Shop The Runway.

And in the Chinese market where Visa has not yet received the liquidation qualification and is unable to carry out domestic payment and clearing business, selling is clearly not the absolute leading role of fashion week marketing.

During the previous fashion week in Shanghai, the non payment was presented in the form of the opening party entrance bracelet, which allowed the audience to experience the technology and publicize the popularity of non payment in other countries.

In the first two years of Visa and Shanghai fashion week, the marketing highlight is to use AR, VR and other technologies to let the audience experience the sea scouring scene in order to attract new users.

After all, most Chinese consumers will only use Visa cards when shopping or shopping abroad.

"We are paying companies, but many people do not really know what we are doing," Jin Yudong said to the interface fashion.

This is why Visa has tried more ways of promoting life scenes, so that payment links can be highlighted in various consumer scenarios that consumers are accustomed to.

In sports sponsorship, this is also true in fashion week sponsorship.

According to Jin Yudong, Visa will also take part in the life of consumers, especially young consumers, through the field of tourism and food.

For Visa, the issuing bank and the receiving machine are its customers. The collection of service charge from the paction to banks and other agencies is the main source of revenue for Visa.

Therefore, to a certain extent, cooperation with famous sports events and fashion week can better display their brand value to these customers.

However, it should not be overlooked that the risk of cooperation with fashion week is being mentioned more and more.

This is more or less related to the impact of social media on traditional fashion week.

Some brands have gradually withdrawn from the list of sponsors of fashion week.

The most famous example is the Mercedes Benz, a German car brand.

It has been working with fashion week since 1996, because the high-end audiences for group and fashion week are highly coincident. It has sponsored fashion week in New York, Berlin, Madrid and London.

During the peak period, it supports over 50 fashion events every year in 30 countries.

But in recent years, it has broken up with New York fashion week and Berlin fashion week, and part of the reason is that the benefits of fashion week are decreasing.

Fortunately, more and more emerging industries, such as technology companies, are showing interest in the fashion industry.

"There are so many designers in the Apple Corp that it may be more fashionable than many fashion brands we know," Kim Yu Dong gave an example to show the potential of the fashion industry in the eyes of technology companies. "Is it a technology company or a fashion company?

Actually, this boundary is very vague.

Wearable devices have become an important branch of technology in fashion circles.

Apple Watch launched in September 2014 on the cover of the Chinese version of Vogue. A year later, Hermes announced the launch of the Apple Watch custom strap, and then Louis Vuitton and tiger Hoya also launched interconnected watches, Ralph Lauren and Jimmy Choo and other brands began to develop smart clothing.

Material science and biotechnology are also attracting more and more attention in fashion industry.

Modern Meadow, Bolt Threads and other start-ups are making artificial leather, artificial silk and artificial wool using food waste from biotechnology, and strive to achieve sustainable fashion.

Visa has also caught up with the trend of fashion week sponsorship.

Aside from the resources it can get from fashion week, it is also needed by fashion week now.

As mentioned earlier, it is an example to provide technical support for the fashion show in Australia fashion week.

The emergence of Visa is more or less attractive to Australian Fashion festivals.

In addition to giving fashion week and designers financial support, Visa itself can bring media concerns, and the retail network built on the payment network is also a valued resource.

In particular, the latter has become the advantage of Visa over many other sponsors.

In the fashion week of Shanghai, Visa was the first SHUSHU/TONG to win the new strength award and was sponsored by its brand SHUSHU/TONG. It was linked to Shopbop. During the season fashion week, the brand's spring and summer series were all on its platform.

Visa also introduced Gong Li to Shopbop's global menswear buyer.

Even if Visa does not sponsor these designers, the buyer resources that it has brought to designers may also continue to play a role.

Interestingly, it seems that the sponsors of this week and fashion week do not have any boundaries, bringing more possibilities, or "brain holes".

"When I design the new series, do I think there will be payments in 200 years?

How many people will Visa serve?

So my sweater has Visa service over trillions of users (Visa Over 799000000...)

Served's embroidery, "Gong Li introduced the embroidery sweater that appeared on its brand's latest show.

He won the Visa special sponsorship for winning the first prize in Shanghai fashion week.

The latest series of his personal brand 8ON8, inspired by American director Woody Alan's 1973 fool's Sleeper movie, decided to use the design to describe how people in 1970s think about the world in 200 years' time.

And Visa is the way he explores the way of payment after 200 years.