The creative strategy you’re about to see has been a unifying force in transforming the fundamental way Mastercard shows up in the market today: from an engine of consumption to an engine of inclusion.

It came at a pivotal moment as Mastercard was trying to strengthen brand relevance, expand audiences and grow new business. It drove the creation of new offerings that became a drivers of mass brand love and a key selling point for new business pitches within B2B. They differentiate Mastercard from its competitors, became revenue generators for the company and impacted society at large.

In 1997, McCann and Mastercard presented the public with a powerful idea in the financial space: Priceless. In a world that was indulging in conspicuous consumption through a card swipe, Mastercard championed the idea that what really matters were the things money couldn’t buy. This singular stance on consumption gave Mastercard a competitive advantage and won them business in the market.

Fast forward two decades: the economy had increasingly shifted into a digital reality. Leaps in technology promised a better life yet Priceless remained out of reach for too many around the world:

1.4 billion people globally are excluded from the financial system.

As a result countless marginalized communities faced discrimination, exploitation, endless barriers blocking their way to better future.

For Mastercard to continue building equity in Priceless, they had to move beyond a commentary on consumption to applying their innovation towards solutions and actions that meaningfully advance financial inclusion.

The rise of the digital economy upended the traditional payments model. Culturally, consumers were moving away from physical cards to digital wallets. Competitors like Venmo, Paypal, Zelle and Cashapp crowded into the marketplace.

During this disruption, Mastercard’s core business was transforming as well. Though the payments market was stagnating, a new growth opportunity emerged: the same capabilities that made Mastercard an amazing card servicer could deployed against problems that businesses and even governments were facing far beyond just facilitating payments.

The problem: Everyone saw Mastercard only as a payments processor. To truly futureproof our business, grow new audiences and expand into new territories, we needed to find a way to lead with our innovation vs. just our payments technology.

Our creative strategy: Create work and ideas that use innovation to transform Mastercard from an engine of consumption to an engine of inclusion so we could pay off our promise of Priceless and futureproof our business.

The more people who have access to economic opportunity, the better for them, the world, and for Mastercard because it opened Mastercard up to new audiences, growth territories and potential streams of revenue.

With Mastercard’s values of “doing well by doing good” as our north star, we codified a process of examining communities excluded from the financial system to see where we could bring them closer to Priceless. Year after year, we looked at how to creatively apply innovative thinking to ambitious challenges far beyond our familiar payments remit.

We used quant research and interviews with marginalized communities. We turned to experts in accessibility – LGBTQIA+ advocacy organization GLAAD, The Royal National Institute of Blind People,, the Alzheimer’s Society and the Polish government agencies helping Ukrainian refugees to understand deep-seated problems plaguing these communities.

Problems like:

• Credit card security protocols forcing transgender and non-binary people to use their birth names against their will.

• Partially-sighted people unable to distinguish between credit cards due to ubiquitous design.

• Legal hurdles blocking the way of caregivers in helping those with dementia manage their finances.

• Ukrainian refugees first abandoned in Poland with no guidance on how to rebuild new lives and then, post settling in, faced growing greater opposition from locals on the basis of unwanted competition.

Breakthrough Moment:

All these challenges had been accepted as “unsolvable,” within the traditional system, but acting as an engine of inclusion, we uncovered innovative ways to bring together our network, technology, and partnerships to create new solutions.

The creative ideas all aimed to unlock a priceless action that drove inclusion:

For the transgender community, we took on long-standing regulations and infrastructure to create True Name, enabling people to use their chosen names.

For the partially-sighted, we innovated on design and entrenched processes to create Touch Card, allowing anyone to tell cards apart with a touch.

For dementia patients, we simplified a UX riddled with legal barriers to create Sibstar - an app and card that let caregivers manage loved ones' spend.

For Ukrainian refugees fleeing to Poland during the Russia-Ukraine war, our “Where to Settle” platform aggregated data sources to direct users to the best places to settle in Poland based on their personal conditions.

As newly settled Ukranian entrepreneurs were positioned as a competitive threat to local businesses in Poland, we built the Where to Start platform which used our data to pinpoint synergies between complementary businesses (e.g. bakeries moving next to hair dressers).

Our campaign Room for Everyone shed light on how new businesses opened by Ukranian migrants could be beneficial to existing, local businesses across Poland.

Our creative strategy of centering our efforts around innovations that make Mastercard into an engine of inclusion has paid off:

Our work has provided powerful tailwinds for Mastercard’s brand vs. Visa:

• Socially-Conscious: +14pts

• Innovative: +16pts

• Visionary: +45pts

• Customer-Centric: +27pts

It’s grown brand and business:

• Mastercard’s revenue up 67% since 2018.

• Mastercard’s brand value up 56% since 2018.

• True Name: available to 900M people in 32 countries

• Touch Card: available to 200M people in 10 countries

• Sibstar: available to 67M people in UK, with more countries coming

And created a step change in greater financial inclusion:

- True Name inspired competitors to create similar products.

- Touch Card and Sibstar created new standards in accesiblity

- Where to Settle benefited ~20% of Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

- Up to 40% of new business owners used the Where to Strat platform and post campaign, 55% of Polish entrepreneurs reported Ukrainian entrepreneurs having a positive impact on the economy (a 10% lift from before).

Lasting impact for society and business? Now that's priceless.

We used quantitative and qualitative research, and connected directly with the communities we were trying to help. We turned to experts in accessibility – LGBTQIA+ advocacy organization GLAAD, The Royal National Institute of Blind People, VISIONS/Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Alzheimer’s Society and the Polish government agencies helping Ukrainian refugees.

From our interviews and research, we identified gaps our solutions could help fix.

Gaps like:

Credit card security protocols forcing transgender and non-binary people to use their birth names against their will.

Partially-sighted people unable to distinguish between credit cards due to ubiquitous design.

Legal hurdles blocking the way of caregivers in helping those with dementia manage their finances.

Ukrainian refugees abandoned in Poland with no guidance on how to rebuild new lives after being forced out of their home country.