Recent advertisement for Visa - what a joke

[jaysabi]

To someone who doesn't have a permanent address, one could simply request for a certification from the village saying that he/she is a resident of where he/she is currently staying.

Whereas bitcoin does not discriminate against anyone.

Well, this is exactly what I'm saying. Bitcoin has its own share of Visa-like claims. Visa's "A network working for everyone" is similar to Bitcoin's "does not discriminate against anyone." Visa's everyone obviously refers only to those who are banked. Those who are not are not covered by everyone. In the same manner that Bitcoin's anyone refers only to those who have access to electricity, internet, smart phones, and so on. Those who do not have access to these do not belong to anyone. Just as Visa does not literally mean everyone, Bitcoin does not also mean anyone.

Stahp. You're making too much sense.  Obviously you were able to tell what is obvious extrapolation in a marketing claim and not blow it out of proportion and somehow work yourself up into taking offense to it like OP did.  Simply put, bitcoin isn't any more accessible to people than Visa is, but I would say that Visa is certainly easier to learn and understand to the uninitiated than bitcoin is. As a fan of bitcoin, I'm still rational enough to understand that bitcoin's only advantage over a centralized payment platform is immutability, and I understand what a limited use case that advantage is. Speed, cost, and reliability all go to Visa in a head to head match up. Does that make it better? In most cases I'd say yes, but if immutability is your biggest differentiator, then perhaps not.

[1715176861]

1715176861

[sikke]

So ironic seeing the biggest centralized payment processors trying to say that they're trying to bank the unbanked...

I don't think that they're thinking about crypto per se, but it's definitely a sign that they're way too delusional.

They think that they are still top dog and doing humanity good when the better thing clearly is to adopt and embrace decentralized crypto technology. But hey, this is the same for pretty much every institution in the traditional fiat economy for a while now.

[jaysabi]

So ironic seeing the biggest centralized payment processors trying to say that they're trying to bank the unbanked...

What exactly is the irony here?  Is Visa not offering a banking solution to the unbanked?  Through pre-paid cards, you don't even need a traditional bank account, and using the card then instantly gives you access to Visa's global merchant network, which by the way is orders of magnitude bigger than the Bitcoin network.  The irony to me is that at this point Visa is better at solving what bitcoin was invented for than bitcoin is.

[davis196]

Being a company or corporation is uncool.Being a "network" is cool.
I don't see anything irritating about this ad.It's just an ad.Ads are usually misleading and telling you what you want to hear.No advertisement is going to tell you the truth about a product.
I don't see any 'stolen ideas' from the cryptocurrency world in this VISA ad,so I couldn't care less.

and I'm not even sure why they need to advertise.  It's not like people want to go get a Visa card after seeing a crappy advertisement like this one.

I suspect they're trying to exploit behavioural science.  They want the public to subconsciously associate words like "network", "signature" and the notion that it's supposedly for "everyone" with their brand before Joe Public hears people like us using those words or phrases in connection with Bitcoin.  People will naturally assume it's all the same stuff if we're all using the same terminology.  

They're not hoping people will think "I want a Visa card".  Most of them already have one.  They want people to think "I'm already part of a network that lets me connect with everyone else, so I don't need any other networks that basically sound the same as what I already have".  

I was thinking the same thing.VISA has a gazillion customers.Why would they still advertise their product?
Probably 90% of the population in the world have heard at least once about VISA.
Marketing/advertising is all about exploiting "behavioral science".
All marketers want to turn the people into buying zombies.

[Kakmakr]

I think someone should ask them, "How many people have lost money through chargebacks. A chargeback is an action taken by a bank to reverse electronic payments. (Something that does not happen with Bitcoin transactions)

Also, ask them how much money was lost due to credit card fraud... I should know, because I was a victim of that in the past. They will never be a better payment method than Bitcoin, because they are a centralized network that are manipulated by governments. (Ask the people who wanted to make donations to Wikileak or the people who wanted to use "Backpage" and "Pornhub") 

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

Sure, that's a fair argument. My point about discrimination was more about the network itself. If Visa decide they don't like you, or things you say, or things you do, or causes you support, or how your spend your money, or who you trade with, etc., then they can unilaterally decide to suspend your transactions and close your account and there is nothing you can do about it. Whereas bitcoin will not and can not do any of these things. It is censorship resistant, and therefore by definition, usable by anybody (although I appreciate your point that anybody doesn't mean everybody).

Speed, cost, and reliability all go to Visa in a head to head match up.

Do they? Visa transactions take 3-5 days for funds to arrive in the merchant's account and take 90-180 days to be irreversible. Bitcoin achieves this in seconds and minutes respectively. They cost the merchant several percent in fees, which the consumer obviously ends up paying through increased prices on goods. The entire Visa network has gone down in various countries and even globally in the past, rendering it completely useless and meaning businesses could only accept cash. This has never happened to bitcoin.

[DooMAD]

Obviously you were able to tell what is obvious extrapolation in a marketing claim and not blow it out of proportion and somehow work yourself up into taking offense to it like OP did.  Simply put, bitcoin isn't any more accessible to people than Visa is, but I would say that Visa is certainly easier to learn and understand to the uninitiated than bitcoin is.

It's not so much the claim itself that bothers me.  More the attempt to blur the lines and make it more difficult for the uninitiated to tell the difference between what's on offer.  It feels to me like that was the intent behind it.

As others have already pointed out, they're not likely to get many new customers from advertising.  So the only reason I can think of why they would want to broadcast this message is to influence the mindset of the customers they already have.  They don't want to lose their fairly dominant position in the market, so it's in their interests to convince people that they've already got everything they need.  It's better for Visa if people aren't looking at other options, so they want to give people the false impression that Visa is offering all the same benefits as the competition. 

I know pretty much all advertising is dishonest in one way or another, but this just seems more pernicious.  Like they're co-opting the narrative.  Using our own words against us to make it sound as though we can't offer people anything different.

[SirLancelot]

It is cringeworthy and far too overdone, but adverts these days find it extremely hard to come up with original ideas. Funnily enough there will be a type of person in the cryptocurrency/bitcoin scene who will act in exactly the same way - they have tunnel vision on one idea only. There are many parallels between payment network providers like Visa and cryptocurrency - the only real difference being that one is decentralized. At present the payment networks have a large scale and all the infrastructure required to handle payments. Once cryptocurrency is able to create instant transactions and at much lower charges then the original payment networks will start to become redundant - but that is still some way off.

This is what you get when you hire a marketing agency with very old generation working for it. When you work with an agency filled with people aging from 20+ to max 40 years old, then you get proper advertisement that actually makes sense, but I am not talking about just hiring them, of course everyone hires young people, but I mean places that gives the decision making as a whole, probably do not even have anyone in the creative department over 40 at all, that is when you get something nice. This? This looks like just some older generation "look how much we care" campaign and that's it, it is definitely as boring as it gets and it is over the top fake as well, VISA doesn't give a damn about these companies for sure, they do not care about the poor people being able to reach to everyone at all, they only care about helping every corner of the world so that they could make more profit.

[Silberman]

"A network for everyone": Yeah Sully, tell that to all the third-party credit card processors that need to interface with Visa and all have different criteria for accepting your transaction.

Come to think of it, we need a goddamn advertising agency too. Will help to clear all the misconceptions people have about Bitcoin. It will probably be privately funded by someone but that won't be a problem so as long as they got good intentions for Bitcoin.

In theory this sounds good however such a solution while it has good intentions and it would work during the short term will be useless as banks and governments just increase their own campaigns to deceive the public and confuse them about what bitcoin is really about, it is better that people find on their own they have been lied, because that way they are going to be way more resistant to any manipulation attempt that governments do in the future.

[shield132]

Why is it a joke? I don't understand why VISA deserved so much hate there.
It's just a marketing video and company tries to bring the positive sides of the visa and make it look unique, positive, bright for people. The message of this video is that VISA connect people with each-other all over the world. It helps businesses to sell from place A to place B online.

What did they say wrong? Visa really helps you to pay with it's card in supermarkets, in online marketplaces, to send money to your friend. If you say that they track our transactions and use that for marketing purposes, then you are right and I guess everyone knows that but people still use it because some of them don't care about privacy and just enjoy the benefits they get from it.

[Koro-Sensei]

Your hate for visa is real man. I mean, its probably an ad for what they are building and its nothing new though. Its quite good for their company as a marketing video and for me the video itself was great. In my country, most middle class earners or government employees are paid through ATM card which is compatible with Visa and Mastercard payment network. I know how centralised is it and how banks are sucking pennies out of it but still it works for convenience factor.

[perfect999]

It's not so much the claim itself that bothers me.  More the attempt to blur the lines and make it more difficult for the uninitiated to tell the difference between what's on offer.  It feels to me like that was the intent behind it.

As others have already pointed out, they're not likely to get many new customers from advertising.  So the only reason I can think of why they would want to broadcast this message is to influence the mindset of the customers they already have.  They don't want to lose their fairly dominant position in the market, so it's in their interests to convince people that they've already got everything they need.  It's better for Visa if people aren't looking at other options, so they want to give people the false impression that Visa is offering all the same benefits as the competition. 

I know pretty much all advertising is dishonest in one way or another, but this just seems more pernicious.  Like they're co-opting the narrative.  Using our own words against us to make it sound as though we can't offer people anything different.

Well, that's basically an advertisement is, trying to make you think that they are the best option for your own good whereas they are only caring about money. Like do you really think that Apple cares about making world's greatest phone or computer? That's by-product of what their real aim is, they want to make a lot of money, if you told apple that they could make a horrible phone for 1 dollar each and sell it for 1000 dollars then they would do that, they wouldn't just make a good phone out of their own good heart, they would make a horrible one and sell it for very expensive amount and get rich, however they know that there is competition so they need to make a good one in order to profit.

Long story short, it is basically just same situation for Visa, they are trying to make it look like you should use Visa because it is good for you, but the reality is you should use it so that they could make more profit.

[paxmao]

I saw the same add and thought exactly the same! It does not make any sense that a company that is clearly delivering most products for people who are middle to upper class are making such a claim as them being for everyone!  I do admit that it may be so in some countries, where even the not so well-to-do have cards and life may be impossible without them, but they are certainly not for everyone and certainly not for everyone in the world.

Visa is what it is and should not pretend being something else and making lame commercials will only burn their reputation across their customer scale.

[ChiBitCTy]

Just watched the ad, this is pretty laughable.  To me it is pretty clear that they are trying to portray this image that they are some sort of global, borderless , trust worthy payment system when the truth is they aren't trustworthy at all.  These credit card companies are all the same and about as scummy as it gets.  Not sure about everyone else but this didn't sway me lol.

[DooMAD]

but they are certainly not for everyone and certainly not for everyone in the world.

And they'll be for even fewer people if Amazon refuse to recognise customers trying to pay with Visa in some places.  I wonder if other companies start to follow suit and maybe Visa will have a bit of a re-think about their fees.   

[Fortify]

I don't watch much TV on the TV itself nowadays, so I don't know if anyone has been talking about this ad or not:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbvl60_CZl8

"What a load of bullshit", I found myself saying aloud after witnessing that for the first time.  How can it be working for everyone when so many people in the world are unbanked?  And how much of the wording in that was deliberately chosen to mirror the kinds of things we say about Bitcoin?  It feels very much like a pre-emptive first strike on their part, possibly demonstrating some insecurities about the threat their business model now faces.

Anyone else get the sense they had crypto in mind when they wrote the script for it?

Yeah it certainly feels so fake and unnecessary 10 seconds in. People know what VISA is probably by the time they are 5 years old, it's one of the backbone payment processors that covers the whole world and it just feels completely pointless to advertise it any more. I suppose the ever shrinking marketing department is trying to justify their budget and existence, if this is the best idea they come up with then they really need to be fired. It's not even a standalone product, they simply sell their payment cards to other brands so they can use the processing network. I guess this is where the extra cash is going from VISA jacking up the prices in places like the UK just because they're greedy.

[DooMAD]

it just feels completely pointless to advertise it any more

That's just it, though.  I don't think they're trying to advertise it.  It's more like positive reinforcement.  They're planting seeds in peoples' brains.  It's like how Apple always talk about the "new features" on their iPhones that have been standard on Android for a couple of years already.  Even if Apple are often late to the party when it comes to the technology, they can still somehow convince their loyal customers that they're getting the latest and greatest thing (even when they aren't), so please don't look at the competition (who can actually offer something better).

Effectively, most people don't buy an iPhone because they saw the ad.  Chances are, anyone paying attention to the ad was going to buy one anyway.  The ad is only there to convince them not to check out the other options which are available to them.  That's what Visa is doing, whilst playing word-association and saying stuff like "Network", "Signature", etc and hoping that they plant that seed and people associate those words with Visa.  That way, when they eventually hear us talking about networks and signatures (even though we were talking about them first), everyone believes Visa are already giving them all they could ever want or need.    

It's all mind-games.  Visa aren't actually being dumb here, despite appearances.  It's actually pretty shrewd and devious.

[oHnK]

it just feels completely pointless to advertise it any more

That's just it, though.  I don't think they're trying to advertise it.  It's more like positive reinforcement.  They're planting seeds in peoples' brains.  

They are like they are spreading the strengthening of the function on their brand image. Even though if people already know Crypto I'm sure they prefer Crypto as a cross-country transaction tool. Very easy fast and low-cost. Moreover, which is not owned by Bitcoin's special Crypto. Crypto is currently only constrained by regulatory recognition only, because if they recognize the superiority of Bitcoin, it is gone to enter their money from expensive transaction costs by Fiat.