Playing BMO's Cards Right
Debits
BMO was the primary Canadian MasterCard issuer when rules changes opened the door to US players.
With huge scale advantages, they offered MasterCards at attractively lower rates than BMO – and began to eat into BMO’s share. With a portfolio of dozens of card products, BMO could not hope to develop a winning feature set for each product at a winning price. Or afford to promote each card product enough to make it a winner.
Credits
How then to save the whole portfolio of cards and not just the strongest? The Bank’s card collection needed a “portfolio brand” to communicate the overall value and difference. What could the difference be? This thinking led to the rethinking of the very structure of the credit card.
The project team came up with one card, with interchangeable features – allowing consumers for the first time to select and pay for only the options they wanted. The result was branded the Mosaik MasterCard – a credit card that customers could “build and re-build” to meet their individual needs.
Returns
The Mosaik MasterCard redefined the credit cards business model. No longer did the Bank need to count so much on high cost acquisition of new customers or the risky re-selling current customers on new cards. Instead, it could simply market new features to current clients. It had a truly differentiated card. Plus, the brand structure allowed for licensing in other markets, should the Bank want to build scale or develop relationships with regional banks.
Team
Brand Strategy, Naming, Web Strategy and Web Architecture: Harry H. Cornelius, Sideren (Cornelius & Co.)
Design Partners: Ove Design & Communications Inc.
