'Life Takes Visa' Takes to Web

With its new ad campaign, Visa has closed the door on its 20-year-old brand promise, "Everywhere you want to be," and introduced a new tagline: "Life takes Visa." The media strategy for the new campaign includes numerous interactive placements, including banners and viral video spots.

"As a budget percentage, [online] continues to be fairly small," said Susanne Lyons, Visa's EVP and chief marketing officer, during a conference call announcing the new campaign. "It's probably one of the ones where we're spending the most time learning."

San Francisco interactive agency AKQA created the digital portion of the campaign, with TBWA/Chiat/Day handling offline channels and Hispanic ads courtesy of Lopez Negrete.

Banner executions all play on the new tagline. One shows an obviously amateur tennis player with the copy "Life takes lessons. Life takes Visa." The media plan includes placements with MSN; Visa didn't discuss other properties.

Additionally, a Web site at LifeTakesVisa.com will contain short form videos that attempt to capture "little universal truth moments," according to Lyons, who said that one video depicts guys having a pillow fight. The new brand Web site was not active as of this writing.

Visa will spend 10 percent more on its 2006 campaign than it did last year. Television is the centerpiece, but the company will also spend more for media online, outdoor and in print.

Lyons said the brand shift was necessary because individuals are no longer only concerned about finding a place where their plastic is accepted, but also about spending via other products and platforms, from debit to online to mobile.

"It was important for the brand platform to evolve to give Visa permission to move into these new areas," she said.