Now Reading | 3 Key Leadership Lessons Behind MasterCard’s Brilliant Priceless Campaign.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/gapinternational/2015/02/13/the-3-key-leadership-lessons-behind-mastercards-brilliant-priceless-brand/
The “Priceless” campaign for MasterCard is one of my all time favorites. It has carried the brand successfully now for over 17 years. Originally the idea was almost passed up for one that tested better with the potential target but “we knew we had it,” said Joyce King Thomas, an executive with MasterCard’s ad agency, McCann Erickson, in a 2006 interview with Fortune. Joyce trusted her instincts about the concept and she was so right on.
When Rajamannar came on board he had to make a decision. He weighed the brand equity of the campaign and decided it had to stay.
“I was inheriting such a legacy brand, a fantastic positioning, and a great advertising platform,” Rajamannar says.
Yet, when Priceless launched in 1997, the world was a different place. “Remaining static was just not an option,” says Rajamannar. “It had to be a fine balance to evolve the platform without destroying anything.” He made an unwavering commitment to move the brand forward.
We all find ourselves facing a similar dilemma in business: how to create change without abandoning what made the organization successful in the first place. At Fierce, we put it this way: We are the people who help you discover and preserve your core ideology—and challenge every thing else.
There are some great lessons to be learned from this campaign:
1. Stay resolved and committed to your new path.
Rajamannar refused to allow Priceless to remain stationary, even when it had been doing so well for nearly two decades. A strong commitment to going beyond what was working, to find what could work even better, helped realize his vision to evolve Priceless.
2. Combine your experience with data.
After thirty years of working with global companies, Rajamannar says his deep experience was integral to his strategy. Just as Rajamannar recognized MasterCard needed a new Priceless campaign for a new century, he also knew the heart of Priceless was too resonant with consumers to abandon it.
3. Bring everyone together and create collective ownership.
“We were in it together,” he says. “Because it was a collective responsibility, we had to be successful.”
MasterCard has the gutsy kind of leadership that can take the entire company on the road of change together. And when a whole company resolves to produce something great, the payoff is priceless.
