Visa International breaks new ground with electronic promotion in Middle East

In just four weeks since the launch of Visa's 'Win a Dream Home' promotion, Visa has recorded thousands of entries exclusively from digital mediums. Of these entries, the majority received have been via the website. SMS entries and email entries are also proving extremely popular.

'This is our first initiative which exploits the convenience of electronic channels to support our consumer promotions in the Middle East, and we are delighted with the overwhelming number of website, email and SMS entries from Visa cardholders across the region,' said Fernando De Matos, Visa's Head of Marketing for the Middle East.

The recently launched 'Win a Dream Home' promotion, which runs across the Gulf and Lebanon until October 26, is based entirely on an electronic system providing automatic entry for every five merchant transactions without the need for entrants to fill in coupons.

Visa is also offering its cardholders their first opportunity to enter the competition using a mobile phone or home computer. Cardholders can participate in the 'Win a Dream Home' promotion by sending their entries via SMS, email or by logging onto www.visa-winadreamhome.com to double their chances of winning the US$275,000 grand prize and supplementary weekly prizes.

'In this digital era, Visa believes that new technologies should be harnessed to broaden the scope of marketing activities. Our cardholders already enjoy the modern technology of our payments systems and have shown great response to the paperless mechanics used in the 'Win a Dream Home' promotion,' De Matos said.

'As the world is fast evolving from wire to wireless, paper to paperless, commerce to e-commerce, Visa remains at the forefront of global payments technology and it is logical that our cardholders should now demand sophisticated communications media to participate in our promotions and special offers.'

Visa anticipates that the number of 'Win a Dream Home' of digital entries will accelerate further as more and more consumers carry out everyday purchases with the added ease and security of Visa cards. Every five retail transactions made on Visa credit or Visa Electron cards automatically enter the cardholder into the grand draw to win US$275,000.