World Premiere – Launch of Mastercard Instalments

In January 2016, our client Mastercard had a project in the global launch pipeline through which it sought to empower consumers to make high-value purchases while at the same time manage their budget in a smart way – Mastercard Instalments. Mastercard has been building its Instalments payment solution for over two years, through a unique collaboration spreading across several departments at country, regional and global levels. Romania was amongst the first 5 countries worldwide selected for the launch of Instalments.

Hence, it was Golin’s given task to build a communications strategy around Instalments differentiators that would spring stakeholders’ (at least one bank and one retailer) positive feedback and enrolment and to explain the novelties provided by this new Mastercard service, and to set Romania as the first country in the world to launch this payment solution.

We rethought the entire approach for the communication of Instalments so as to adapt to the local market’s specifics. While in all other countries, the focus of this innovative payment solution was on flexibility, convenience and customer experience, we based our product communication on the enhanced control over budget provided to consumers. We designed a two-phased robust media relations campaign: B2B communication towards banks and retailers that would support signing of partnerships for launching Mastercard Instalments in a world premiere in Romania, and efficiently communicating the world premiere to the broad audience (B2C).

Thus, Romania had taken the pole-position surpassing the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and the UK in adopting a top-of-the-line payment solution with unique benefits and functionalities, shaped around customer choice and experience.

Golin organized an unconventional press conference in a distinctive setting, so as to overlay with the uniqueness of the financial product Mastercard and its partners were launching, within which we embedded the historic moment of the first live transaction in a world premiere through Mastercard Instalments during the actual press conference and spread across the frontispiece of Romanian press that our client launched, in a global premiere in Romania, a new way to do commerce.