Visa used its exclusive sponsorship of the online Xbox 360 Madden NFL 07 Tournament to increase brand awareness and customer satisfaction among participants predominantly male and between the ages of 18-34 years, a key demographic.
Visa wanted to cement brand loyalty by reaching out to current and past card holders while attracting new customers.
As an exclusive sponsor, Visa branding was a key part of all messaging for the Madden NFL 07 Tournament—on Xbox.com, on the Xbox LIVE user interface, and on the registration page for the tournament.
Measuring a sample from three groups of Xbox LIVE subscribers—those who hadn’t yet seen any of the sponsorship marketing, those who registered for the tournament, and those who actually played—shows that the sponsorship gave Visa a big lift with everyone who saw it.
- Compared to the group that wasn’t exposed to the sponsorship, the number of tournament registrants who indicated Visa is the best card overall increased by 16 percentage points.
- An impressive 59 percent of people who played the tournament indicated Visa understands what’s important or relevant to them—a 15-point lift.
- This shows that the more participants engaged with the sponsored tournament, the more they felt that Visa understood their needs.
Visa’s exclusive sponsorship of the online tournament produced the following results:1
- Most of the participants in the key 18-34 demographic said that Visa is “cool”, “fun”, and “for someone like me” because of Visa’s sponsorship.
- Eighty-four percent of the exposed group said that their overall perception of Visa is positive based on the brand’s sponsorship of the Madden NFL 07 Tournament.
- Visa was accurately identified as sponsor of the tournament by the vast majority of post-tournament respondents.
Many American adults already have a Visa card, so the company needed to reach out to current and past customers while attracting new ones. This sponsorship strengthened Visa brand perception of customers who were exposed to it—current and potential.
When gamers were asked for their wish list, tournaments were consistently sited as the number-one item, however currently only 6-8 official Xbox LIVE tournaments take place each year. In short, they’re a very big deal to this key demographic. As Visa found, tournament sponsorship is a great way to attract the attention and goodwill of Xbox LIVE gamers.
To learn more about advertising opportunities with Xbox, contact your sales representative today.
Download the Visa case study (PDF, 1.03 MB)
