Visa catches shoppers with app

Visa Canada wanted to increase overall share-of-wallet (and volume of transactions) in an economic climate where disposable income remains flat, as well as shift share from its competitors.

During the back-to-school season, a campaign was developed that leveraged e-commerce deals featuring Visa-exclusive offers. ShopCatch, a location-based app and mobile website that acts as a shopping tool and deal finder, was created to function as a turnkey sales engine for the brand.

All of Visa's featured offers were promoted within the app and at Visaperks.ca. Users could virtually shop all stores within a walkable radius from their GPS coordinates, browsing deals by category, discount and vendor upon downloading the app.

OMD worked with Olive Media to launch a contest driving app downloads, increase traffic to the ShopCatch site, as well as leverage email subscribers and visitors to shopping-behaviour properties such as Flyerland.ca. Bloggers and editors of publications with Canadian audiences were invited to media launch events to test out the service.

On the print side, OMD circulated Toronto Star Visa gatefolds at major transit hubs such as Toronto's Union Station, as well as to those with paid subscriptions.

The 2011 back-to-school period saw a notable lift in card usage, and Visa brand perception attributes. ShopCatch now has a nation-wide shopping mall retail presence, and over 100,000 Canadian app users.