Visa has been a proud sponsor of the Olympic games for over 20 years. Visa was competing with the action of the Olympics event for people’s attention. To be heard we needed to be a part of the event and the Olympic spirit.

What if we could hold up a mirror to the action happening in the Olympics when it was happening? What if we could comment on live action? Congratulate successes? Stoke the Olympic spirit not interrupt it? Bringing people closer to arguably the greatest show of human endeavor.

Only 0.02% of the world’s population ever goes to the Olympics. The rest of us watch it at home wishing we could be there. This understanding led everything we did around the Olympics to bring the Olympics to the world. Our idea of ‘bringing people closer’ helped to organize our activity and changed the way that Visa’s business behaved.

One powerful creative expression, 'Go World' brought Olympics fans closer to the Games. The US produced 25 TVC’s, some adapted for five additional key markets: Canada, Russia, China, Japan, S. Korea. As host country, Canada developed a slew of TV spots celebrating their athletes. We introduced a never-done-before promotion to win tickets to the Games for life. We brought athletes' stories directly to fans in a digital and social media approach, developing a microsite with offers and unique content, including widgets and athlete training videos. There was OOH in Vancouver, Moscow, San Francisco, and a full-takeover of NYC’s Grand Central Station with a media innovation enabling consumers to view TVC’s live in 3-D. We truly moved at the 'speed of culture', partnering with NBC to create congratulatory TV featuring actual footage from our athletes' races, airing same day, and provoking "how’d they do that?" social chatter and instant Twitter love.

Visa was the most talked about brand during the Olympics, consuming 55% of Olympic social media chatter. Digital content was shared socially 500,000+ times and our 'go world' Youtube channel has 1MM+ views.

In the US, Visa had three of the top ten most remembered and liked TV commercials during the Olympics (Source: IAG) – Visa’s Dan Jansen was ranked #1 – Branding and messaging for “Go World” surpassed all benchmarks for all campaigns airing during the Olympic (Source: Ipsos) Outdoor in Vancouver, Moscow, San Francisco, and via a takeover of Grand Central Station in NYC, we utilized 3D technology to create a unique Olympic experience in unexpected places.

Our promotion turned every Visa transaction into a chance to get closer to future Olympic action, with a chance to win Winter Olympic tickets for life.

There were more than 446 press stories about the campaign, equaling over 67.8 million impressions.