The Challenge:
Find a consumer facing way to talk about NFC (Near Field Communication) payments—aka contactless payments—that drives adoption by issuers (aka banks) and usage by consumers. In other words, How do we get banks to issue contactless cards and people to use them?
TL;DR:
Tell people to "Tap to pay with Visa." It's so fast. So cool. So Easy.
The Long Version:
Contactless payments had failed to launch in the US. While popular around the world, Visa Paywave suffered from poor adoption and limited availability stateside. At the end of 2016, they turned to their newly formed in-house team to help them solve this problem.
Fellow copywriter Adam Wenger and I took on the task, distilling complex technological and financial jargon into simple language that everyone could understand.
After extensive research, trademark checks, iterations, and back-and-forth with legal, we ultimately netted out with: Tap to pay with Visa. Literally, one of our first picks on day one weeks or months before. Which was a great lesson in never throwing away your darlings.
The Plan:
Make “Tap to pay” ubiquitous and fair-use so that it can increase adoption throughout the payments industry. From awareness campaigns to reference guides, we created an ecosystem that was ready to take off even before the pandemic hit.
We kicked things off with a Starbucks Holiday Cup campaign with NFL talent, helped guide agencies to create additional campaigns, used the Winter Olympics and Super Bowls to showcase it, and created so many campaigns you may have told yourself, "OK! I get it! I can tap to pay. Geez!" (Sorry about that)
During the start of the pandemic, contactless payments and “Tap to pay” took off. Early investments paid off as issuers throughout the world began offering contactless cards and retailers reassured customers about “touch-free” payments at checkout.
Now, it's hard to find a place that doesn't let you"Tap to pay with Visa."
