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Discover Financial Services Launches New Advertising Campaign
Discover® Card customer benefits are highlighted in humorous spots
September 13, 1999
Riverwoods,
Illinois, September 13, 1999…Discover Financial
Services, a business unit of Morgan Stanley Dean
Witter & Co. (NYSE:MWD), today announced the
launch of a new advertising campaign that positions
Discover® Card as a different kind of credit card—one
that provides many tangible reasons for consumers
to choose the card.
The campaign, featuring
a new tagline, "There's Always Something
More To Discover," was created by Goodby,
Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco and
the first television commercial will air on Sunday,
September 12 during Emmy programming. This new
tagline better represents Discover Card's comprehensive
package of benefits and replaces the successful
"It Pays To Discover" tagline that Discover
Card has been using for the past 12 years.
"Customers
are looking for a credit card company that gives
them straight talk and benefits that are important
to them," said Roger Hochschild, executive
vice president, Business Development, Discover
Financial Services, Inc. "These ads show
consumers that there are more compelling reasons
to use Discover Card."
"The new
commercials feature humorous, exaggerated situations
that highlight some of Discover Card's customer
benefits," said Cathy Davis, vice president,
advertising and brand management, Discover Financial
Services. "For example, Discover Card won't
automatically raise Cardmembers' rates if they
make a late payment and we make it easier for
our customers to speak with a live customer service
representative about their accounts."
"Late
Payment" (30 sec.)
A young man is
celebrating his promotion with his parents in
a restaurant. After the meal, the young man gives
the waiter a credit card that ISN'T a Discover
Card. This sets in motion a Mission Control-like
scenario at a "big bank card tracking center,"
where a blinking light notifies his credit card
company that a transaction is taking place and,
because the young man's last credit card payment
was half a day late, the unsuspecting young man's
interest rate is raised automatically. The voiceover
then informs viewers that although other companies
may automatically raise their interest rates for
a late payment, Discover Card doesn't do that.
The commercial ends with the tagline "There's
Always Something More To Discover."
"Let
Me Thank You" (30 sec.)
A mailman
delivers a Discover Card envelope to a house and
is startled when the woman of the house opens
the envelope and screams happily - it is her Discover
Card Cashback Bonus® Award check. The woman wants
to give a big kiss to the mailman for delivering
her Discover Card Cashback Bonus Award check,
but the mailman tries to evade her in his pokey
mail truck. A voiceover states that "people
sure seem to appreciate their Discover Cashback
Bonus!" The commercial ends with the tagline
"There's Always Something More To Discover."
"Mr.
Lamp" (30 sec.)
The commercial opens
with a man alone in his apartment speaking to
various inanimate objects. The camera cuts to
his point of view and the viewer realizes that
the man is talking to a lamp, a ceiling fan and
a picture frame. He then turns to the rest of
the room, asking "Who wants pizza?"
as he points around the room, looking for takers.
A voiceover then says that although some people
don't care if they can talk to a real person or
not, when customers call Discover Card it's easy
to reach a live customer service representative.
The commercial ends with the tagline "There's
Always Something More To Discover."
"How
Credit Cards Work" (60 sec./30 sec.)
This
advertisement is a humorous depiction of a potentially
serious problem— young men and women who do not
understand how credit cards work, so they go overboard.
Parents give their son a credit card on his first
day at college and tell the student, "it's
for emergencies." We next see the student
using the card to buy pizza, new clothes, restaurant
meals for his friends, and much more. Later,
the student answers the door in his brand new
scuba suit, only to find his father standing there,
holding the credit card bill. A voiceover then
tells viewers that there are better ways to teach
young people about credit and offers a 1-800 number
or a web address, www.discovercard.com, to order
the Discover Card booklet, "How Credit Cards
Work." The booklet will be available in
mid-October.
The media schedule includes
network, spot and cable television programming
in primetime, early evening and late night time
periods. A second pool of four advertisements
will begin airing in November 1999. Media buys
also include 60 second cinema spot buys with National
Cinema Network in December 1999.
Goodby,
Silverstein & Partners is a San Francisco-based
ad agency whose clients include Budweiser, Pepsi-Cola,
Hewlett Packard, Nike & Pacific Bell.
Discover
Financial Services, a business unit of Morgan
Stanley Dean Witter & Co., operates the Discover
Card brands with more than 50 million Cardmembers
and the Discover Business Services Network. Discover
Business Services is the largest independent credit
card network in the United States with more than
3.6 million merchant and cash access locations.
CONTACT:
Catherine R. Edwards
Discover
Financial Services, Inc.
P: 224/405-2008
catherineredwards@discoverfinancial.com
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