Creative Business Transformation > Product & Service

TRUE NAME

McCANN , New York / MASTERCARD / 2021

Awards:

Bronze Cannes Lions
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Case Film
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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

Background

Mastercard has been supporting the LGBTQIA+ community for more than a decade, under its “Acceptance Matters” platform.

Understanding the lived experience of people is central to ensuring authenticity. One of our creatives, who is Trans, shared a personal story about his credit card: a deli merchant called out his order based on the name on his credit card (which was his “dead name,” and feminine), putting his safety at risk. [Note: In the U.S. legally changing one’s name is very expensive, time-consuming and prohibitively difficult—especially in conservative states.]

So we asked ourselves, could Mastercard do something to actually remedy this problem? And maybe even change industry practices.

Mastercard doesn’t issue credit cards. Banks do. Mastercard makes cards work, but banks own the cards themselves, the cardholder relationships, and the credit.

We realized that a fundamental element of every card is broken for millions, so we couldn’t just fix it ourselves: we had to put Mastercard’s industry relationships on the line to convince banks.

Strategy & Process

To develop the right solution to pitch to banks, we started with the LGBTQIA+ community. First, to ensure our ideas and approach felt appropriate and correctly addressed people’s needs. And, second, to work with them to generate enough excitement around the resulting product to both capture the attention of banks, and make them feel comfortable signing on to make it happen.

Here’s what we learned:

For LGBTQIA+-identifying people, especially Trans and Nonbinary people who use chosen names, being called by the right name is not just a matter of expression: it’s also one of acceptance, and even physical safety.

In fact, that 32% of Transgender people who’ve shown an ID card (such as a credit card) with a name or gender that didn’t match their gender presentation have been verbally harassed, denied benefits or service, asked to leave, or assaulted.

Mastercard went to banks with an idea to change this, but no bank would launch it. So we adopted a new strategy: launch it ourselves and drive demand to get banks to put it in market.

Experience & Implementation

We created True Name: the first payment product where people could feature their chosen name on their card.

Mastercard went to banks with support from the LGBTQIA+ community. There was some interest, but no banks would commit. But we believed in the idea, so put our reputation on the line – and announced True Name anyway.

This was a bold and unprecedented challenge to the market: we were announcing a credit card that we couldn’t make without a bank – to convince banks that it had to be made.

Mastercard launched the idea for True Name through a 360 campaign at World Pride 2019 in NYC. This included creating panels where Trans and Nonbinary advocates spoke on the impact True Name could make to people’s everyday lives, PR placements, advertisements during the Pride Parade broadcast, and social and OOH placements.

Business Results & Impact

The idea for True Name made an immediate and significant impact in culture and the LGBTQIA+ community.

As a result of the response, Mastercard secured partnerships with multiple banks around the world. True Name is now in market with BMO Harris Bank, Superbia Credit Union, Citibank, and Bunq, with more set to launch in more markets around the world.

Even more importantly, True Name set a new industry standard. Our competitors (including Visa) and banks (including JP Morgan Chase) have subsequently changed their own practices, bringing similar products to market: changing the industry, one step and one name at a time.

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