Posts Tagged ‘Beijing’

Responsible or not? Visa’s Olympic sponsorship

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

If you watched the Olympics, you’ve seen Visa’s pervasive Go World ads.

Morgan Freeman’s distinctive voice always grabs me, but the relevance and timeliness of the ads have kept my attention.

Here’s the ad Visa ran immediately after Michael Phelps won his unprecedented 8th Gold Medal.


View this video on YouTube.

Impressive.

Each Visa ad has closed with the following line:

Visa.
Proud sponsor of the Olympic Games.
And the only card accepted there.

Visa’s exclusive arrangement lets them say as much in all their advertising, and a high percentage of the people attending the games sign up for a new card. Of course, Visa’s exclusivity also means if you want to use a credit card when you are there, it can only be a Visa.

And that’s the problem.

Not everyone that goes to the games realizes their AMEX, Mastercard or other competing card will be useless. Those without a Visa are forced to use often expensive exchange options and deal with all the hassles of working with foreign currency.

Rohit Barghava is blogging from Beijing and believes Visa’s exclusivity strategy is backfiring:

The end result is lots of negative experiences and consumer anger against Visa, including several people I spoke to who even said they would NOT get a new Visa card because of this tactic. The incremental sales and revenue for Visa cards at the Games may be good, but the word of mouth generated for Visa at the world’s largest sporting event is nearly all negative.

Given the above, do you believe Visa’s sponsorship of the 2008 Beijing Olympics is responsible or not?

Comment below to weigh in.

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Twittering for good and The History of Evil

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

As I’ve been preparing my presentation for PodCamp Seattle regarding how social media can be used to help create social good, I decided to use social media to reach out and find some great examples.

First, I posted a request through Twitter (follow me) and received a couple of good ideas. Then I realized it might make sense to reach out two people that care and have a lot more Twitter followers than me: Guy Kawasaki (follow Guy) and Chris Brogan (follow Chris).

They were kind enough to post a request for ideas to thousands of their followers, and voila! I received a boat load of responses immediately—good stuff I’ll be able to use to make my presentation better.

I also made some new Twitter friends along the way, like Tan Siok Siok, an award-winning filmmaker and educator (follow Siok Siok).

Check out the trailer for her new documentary regarding the Beijing Olympics, Boomtown Beijing.

On her blog, I discovered the following video:

I was struck by its creative execution and simplicity—and surprised to learn it was created by a student. It has been viewed 1.2 million times in four months. Fascinating, and worth your time.

When I decided to look for examples for my speech using social media, I expected to get what I was looking for and move on. But I got more than that—I received goodwill, gained inspiration and made some new friends along the way.

And that, unto itself, is social good gained from social media.

Have you seen social media used to create social good?

Comment below to share.