For the past 25 years, MasterCard has been a brand that has celebrated Priceless moments in culture. As a financial brand, we took the stance that some things were beyond money, and that the most important moments in life were the ones you spend with the people who matter most, rather than the things you choose to buy. This past New Years Eve, we were looking for a way to bring that core principle to life in a new way. We needed to figure out how we could we bring the notion of “Priceless" to life on a night when nearly every person, across the globe, was paying attention to the same moment (the clock striking midnight). And how could we make our brand relevant and meaningful on this night of celebration. We chose to focus our efforts on the place where more people are gathered to celebrate this occasion than anywhere else in the world – Times Square. If we wanted to create something big, visible, and impactful, there was no better central home. And with an opportunity to place media on digital boards throughout Times Square during NYE, we had incredible visibility to the revelers below. But breaking through would be a challenge. Times Square is already an incredibly noisy and chaotic environment—even more so during NYE, when thousands of people descend upon the area to ring in the New Year. Standing out, and getting people to participate in a MasterCard idea, would require something quick and easy to get. Something that would seamlessly fit in to the celebrations of the evening. Our idea was simple: take a picture of your celebration, or share your favorite moment from 2013, tag it #PricelessNewYear, and you could be featured on the big screens in Times Square during the NYE countdown. It was a simple way for MasterCard to participate in an annual ritual, and add something to the experience. Importantly, we knew that we were tapping into an existing behavior, rather than trying to get people to do something a brand was asking them to do above and beyond their typical celebration. The results were phenomenal. We delivered over 665 million impressions, and more than 2 million actions around #PricelessNewYear in the 2 weeks leading up to 2014 and NYE. We saw nearly 12 thousand mentions of #PricelessNewYear on NYE alone, as well as over 700 thousand likes, comments, and shares on Facebook. Not to mention 1.2 million clicks, retweets, replies, and follows from our Promoted Trends and Tweets. In the end- MasterCard helped to make New Years Eve more amazing for not just people who were there, but for our fans around the world. And that is what Priceless is all about.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mastercardnews/sets/72157639048448985/with/11568028334/ https://twitter.com/search?q=%23PricelessNewYear&src=tyah&f=realtime
