Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, recently launched the first phase of its brand evolution ‘Meet Visa’. Developed by Visa’s global creative agency, award-winning Wieden+Kennedy, ‘Meet Visa’ highlights the diverse capabilities of Visa’s network and its commitment to fostering global economic inclusion. We’ve exclusively chatted with Christine Harb, Vice President Marketing CEMEA of Visa for her perspectives on reintroducing the iconic Visa brand.
BB: For more than 60 years, Visa continues to shape the world of global payments. How has the brand been able to stay relevant for all these years?
CH: When Visa was founded more than 60 years ago, few could imagine a world beyond cash and checks. Our vision to introduce a more secure, reliable, and convenient currency in digital form began with a simple question: what if money became fully electronic? Since then, we have worked relentlessly to offer innovative products and solutions that would enable individuals, businesses, and economies to thrive and make our brand relevant in people’s everyday lives.
Zooming in to the past 18 months, our role as an engine of commerce became even more prominent when the pandemic impacted our lives in so many ways. Consumers and businesses had to shift towards digital payments almost overnight to survive. Visa – those four letters – popped up everywhere – every time a consumer opened their wallet, paid a vendor, walked into a store, or purchased something online. It also became the brand that enabled many small businesses and brick and mortar vendors to move online as we knew that people would need help to access the digital economy to survive. Having built the largest, most dynamic open network of technology, partnerships, and people on the planet, we at Visa were able to leverage the power of our brand and our network to work quickly and support those that fell victim to the financial repercussions caused by the pandemic.
Today, we continue to anticipate the future of digital commerce, providing access through our secure global network working for everyone, everywhere and our trusted brand is at the heart of everything that we do.
BB: Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments, has launched the first phase of its brand evolution ‘Meet Visa’, moving the brand from a card-issuing platform to a wider fintech platform. Can you take us through the story of Meet Visa and the brand transformation strategy?
CH: There is power in those four letters, recognized by almost everyone, and standing for trust, security, acceptance and inclusion. Yet very few people actually “know” Visa. Many, think we are a trusted credit card company. What they don’t necessarily know or see is that Visa operates the largest, most dynamic network of people, partners, and products. It was thus clear to us that we needed to reintroduce Visa to the world by ensuring that our role and the value we bring to our network and to economy was clearer.
While our brand evolution has been underway for a while now, the onset of the pandemic has highly accelerated the work. We have swiftly evolved our communications around our brand and launched “Meet Visa”, a campaign inviting people to get to know us and understand the power of our global network, how we enable modern money movement and how we expand economic access for everyone, everywhere.
Developed by Visa’s global creative agency of record, award-winning Wieden+Kennedy, ‘Meet Visa’ films spotlight the power of the network and feature real people and authentic stories, opening people’s eyes to the power of Visa- always working in the background to uplift people all over the world. From the carpet craftsman in Morocco, weavers from the Berber Villages to the family-run tapas restaurant in Barcelona – Visa is enabling access to the global economy.
The aim is to shed a light amongst people worldwide on the power of our iconic brand as well as provide a glimpse into what an age with more access could look like for all of us.
The work also offers a peek into a new visual identity for Visa, built in partnership with leading global brand design firm Mucho that will be rolled out in more detail later in 2021. The initial elements of the brand transformation include a simplified single representation of our brand mark, refreshed colors for digital impact and a new brand symbol designed to elevate.
BB: How do you see the refreshed brand going in harmony with the overall purpose of Visa as a brand?
CH: Our global campaign aims to celebrate the diversity and scale of the network – it highlights the commitment of the Visa brand including business opportunities, communities and services that help people thrive by promoting fair and equitable access to commerce.
‘Meet Visa’ aims to showcase the breadth of the Visa network at work providing access and advancing commerce for real people in real places around the world – from taking crypto mainstream to creating new innovative ways to pay or finding flexibility in how people get paid.
We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, will uplift everyone; and that when everyone has economic access, everyone can thrive. This belief is the foundation of all that we do and defines the products and solutions we deliver. And it guides our actions as one of the most trusted brands in the world.
By stepping out and redefining itself after six decades, Visa is making it clear to audiences where it stands and what it strives for. We are so much more than a credit card. We really are the network that works for everyone.
We focus every day on enabling digital commerce for both buyers and for sellers. Amongst other things, this means:
- Ensuring the ecosystem for moving money continues to elevate all audiences through financial inclusion.
- Supporting small and micro business owners to build their businesses and thrive
- Providing solutions to gig workers to get paid faster, to large corporations to pay their partners across borders more securely and quickly
- Enabling consumers to receive a faster insurance payout directly on to their Visa card in times of need.
BB: Why has Visa chosen the UAE as the launching pad for Meet Visa in the region?
CH: We have selected UAE as one of the first markets globally to drive our brand evolution, reflecting Visa’s commitment to the growth of digital commerce in the country and across the region.
Over the next few months, Visa’s new brand identity will become visible in all 200+ countries and territories Visa operates in, cutting across the company’s primary business strategy encompassing:
- Consumer payments, focusing on expanding access and moving the $17 trillion spent in cash and checks globally to digital payments.
- New payment flows including cross-border person-to-person payments and a range of value-added services that help businesses of all sizes navigate today’s landscape; identify new growth opportunities; and maintain our mission of making Visa the most secure, resilient and reliable network.
- A diversity of offerings and solutions through burgeoning partnerships with fintechs and established brands, relationships with governments around the world and innovative technology built for the future.
BB: What are the main trends of the consumer payment landscape in MENA?
CH: I think what stood out most to us is the increasing use of digital payment forms over cash, the desire to tap to pay or be paid by consumers and merchants.
Contactless now account for more than two thirds of transactions globally, excluding the US, in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, that number is even higher. In fact, 9 out of 10 transactions in Saudi Arabia and 8 out of 10 in the UAE are made with contactless cards or devices. It is therefore not surprising that digital payments serve as a catalyst for financial inclusion, as they are often the first formal financial product a person uses.
Several MENA countries were already making steady progress towards becoming a cashless economy, thanks to the government initiatives, and the pandemic has only further accelerated this trend.
As a trusted engine of commerce, Visa delivers pioneering payments solutions for the benefit of businesses and consumers and to further promote digitization.
Over the next few years, we’re set to see even faster changes in the payments landscape, and these markets are set to be at the forefront of the payment’s transformation.
BB: Being one of the top regional marketers in MENA, how do you see the post COVID-19 era changing the fintech marketing and fintech innovation scenes in the Middle East?
CH: When the pandemic broke out, it was an opportunity for payment service providers and the entire fintech industry to really show the flexibility, agility and innovation in payments that we have been talking about for some time now.
There is no doubt that there has been a significant and revolutionary change in the way people pay. When more than half a decade of change has taken place in just a few months, it’s obvious that the disruption we have seen in payments behavior over the past year is here to stay.
As transactions and interactions in our financial lives have become increasingly digital, customer expectations and the ability of financial firms to develop personalized, innovative services have increased. This is where the role of fintech comes into play and underlines their importance in a cashless post COVID world.
It is important to note that this technological innovation is occurring among both new entrants and incumbents as the financial services industry makes the shift from transaction-based to data-driven revenue models that simultaneously create convenience and value for customers.
