Finance brands are pushing money-can’t-buy customer journeys in an effort to keep customers engaged.
Take Mastercard’s “Priceless Surprises” lottery, for example. Customers who get their name drawn could be sent to a dinner at a fancy restaurant, on a vacation to their favorite city, or even have Justin Timberlake show up at their doorstep. It’s part of a larger trend in financial marketing to let the customer “feel” the experience of the brand in a way that’s not connected to a particular product or service.
“Storytelling is dead,” said Raja Rajamannar, chief marketing and communications officer for Mastercard, speaking at Advertising Week New York on Tuesday. “You need to engage with consumers in a way that’s completely different; you need to connect with them as people, understanding what matters in their lives.”
So, rather than craft a story for the customer, brands now want to be part of that story, being there for life experiences that matter most to them. The thinking is the result of a change in the marketing strategies from storytelling around products to enmeshing the brand with the customer’s life.
Read the full story on tearsheet.co
Featured image of Chase-sponsored concert at the Club Bar & Grill in Madison Square Garden, courtesy Chase
More in Marketing
‘Worried about getting caught out’: Sir Martin Sorrell on why CMOs are not ready to pay for outcome-based agencies
A steady economy is emerging as the quiet counterweight to AI’s much-hyped reinvention of the agency holdco model.
‘More focused on advertising than ever before’: Nearly all of X’s top 100 advertisers returned, ads boss claims
Claim comes as X is embroiled in latest scandal that involves it’s AI chatbot Grok creating sexualized images of women and minors.
CES 2026: Agentic AI hype vs. media buyers’ pragmatism
CES 2026 was all about agentic AI, but Digiday’s Seb Joseph shares why media buyers are approaching the hype around autonomous media buying with pragmatism over urgency.