Discover Runs Surprising Super Bowl Commercial

Last night’s Super Bowl seemed to be full of surprises. The back-and-forth affair between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks featured plays that made it seem like it was anyone’s game right up until the final minutes. With the Patriots edging out the Seahawks by a final score of 28-24, many considered the victory a surprise. Not because the Patriots weren’t fully capable of winning, but because of the odd final play.

The Seahawks had a good opportunity to win by running the ball into the end zone instead of making a pass which was ultimately intercepted. But that wasn’t the only surprise to take place on Super Bowl Sunday. Of the many widely-heralded commercials to air during the Super Bowl broadcast (many people admit to tuning in specifically for the commercials themselves), one commercial stood out to us as quite a big surprise.

As Ashley Rodriguez reports on AdAge.com, credit card company Discover made its first Super Bowl in appearance in nearly 30 years. What is surprising about this is not just the fact that the company has taken so long to run a Super Bowl ad, but the fact that Discover ran the only ad by a credit card company. It is often considered to operate under the shadow of the more widely used Visa and MasterCard credit cards. In perhaps what is a comment upon Discover’s position in their marketplace, the ad is called “Surprise”.

As Rodriguez explains, “the credit card company is repurposing an earlier ad from the ‘We\’d Treat You Like You\’d Treat You’ campaign, which features a man who hates surprises and is startled by a surprise birthday party. This time around, it’s a goat. He screams, the goat screams, they all scream.” The ad is actually pretty funny and can be considered one of the best Super Bowl commercials. Check it out below!

“We wanted to keep everything that was working with the campaign, but we wanted to add a little surprise,” Rodriguez quotes Julie Loeger who is Discover’s Senior Vice President of Marketing as saying, “It’s the Super Bowl, so we have to be somewhat entertaining and humorous.” The ad is also quite effective, in our estimation. That’s because it reveals one of the highlights of using the Discover card. Cardholders receive their FICO scores on their monthly bills.

“That’s pretty cool of you guys,” comments the customer in the commercial, who is on the phone with a Discover representative. Both roles, by the way, are played by the same actor to underline the “We\’d Treat You Like You\’d Treat You” concept. We’re not sure yet just how successful the ad was in securing Discover new customers. But it is important to reiterate that they were the only credit card company to run an ad during the Super Bowl.

That, we must say, is quite the surprise. Evidently, Discover is looking to step out of the shadows of Visa and MasterCard. Although Rodriguez notes that the “We\’d Treat You Like You\’d Treat You” campaign launched in 2012, it’s hard to argue that you can get a bigger audience to watch your ad any other time than on Super Bowl Sunday. Of course, this isn’t lost on Leoger. “Timing is everything,” she said, “That, coupled with a lot of people watching us, is just a home run.”

Wrong sport – but we get the picture! Considering Discover’s commitment to its customers, don’t be surprised to see more of them enter your place of business looking to use their cards to pay for their purchases. At Canadian POS Corporation, we provide our clients with top-of-the-line POS terminals that accept all credit cards including Discover. You can upgrade from your current provider by giving us a call at 1-877-748-2884 today!