The wait is over. After announcing this past March that it has designs on becoming a player in the comparison shopping industry and challenging the likes of Google (GOOG) and Pay Pal, Visa’s (V) official marketing push for its Rightcliq online shopping service is underway this week.
The largest credit and debit card brand in the world has an aggressive marketing strategy to push Rightcliq after months of testing the new service. Visa believes Rightcliq will deliver all of the things that people love about shopping online while improving on the areas of that consumers often complain about the most.
“We talked to a number of consumers and we understand that they think e-commerce is a good experience today, but that there are ways to make it better,” says Charlie Wilson, Visa’s chief of e-commerce. “Consumers say they want it simpler and easier and more convenient than it is today. We organized around those principles.”
Visa has identified two key demographic groups among online shoppers that it will focus its Rightcliq marketing on. The first, which it calls “young trendsetters,” is comprised of shoppers who are regularly on the lookout for the latest and greatest products and spend a good deal of time interacting with others while they do their shopping. The second, labeled “shopping enthusiasts,” is the trendy fashionista crowd who practically shop for a living and pride themselves on being in the know about what’s hot.
Combined, Visa says this comprises roughly one-fifth of the entire U.S. online shopping community and more than 26 percent of all consumer retail spending on the web.
As part of the marketing push, the company will target these important and influential consumers through a series of ads on some of sites that they frequent the most, DailyCandy.com and Gizmodo.com just to name a few. Visa will also launch a public relations and publicity campaign focusing on the publications regular online shoppers read the most. Marketing within social media sites will also be involved, according to Wilson.
The Rightcliq marketing launch follows Visa’s recent $2 billion purchase of CyberSource, the online fraud prevention service that boasts nearly 300,000 global merchants. Though there’s been no concrete evidence supporting it, there is a thought that somewhere down the line Visa will combine elements of the two in a more diverse offering.
Chances are you’ll start seeing ads for Rightcliq this week, timed appropriately in the heart of the back-to-school shopping period. Leave us your thoughts and comments regarding how you think Visa will do with this new service.
