2024-08-16 16:50:26
A long-time sponsor of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Visa is supporting nearly 150 athletes in 2024. Its Chief Marketing Officer, Frank Cooper IIIdetails his forays into sport, music and video games…
Visa has been a major partner of the Olympic Games since 1986. In addition to providing more advanced payment systems with each edition, Visa has been supporting athletes since the Sydney Olympics in 2000. How do you work with these athletes, before and during the Games?
Frank Cooper : This year, the Visa team is made up of about 147 athletes, split between the Olympic and Paralympic Games. With these athletes, we share the same values: fully investing in what we do, always seeking to improve, and giving to others… We also try to help them acquire extra-sporting skills. For example, about a hundred athletes came to spend a week in Paris, at the Palais de Tokyo, last October. We advised them, with the help of creators from all over the world, on content creation. It was an exciting experience. And it didn’t stop there: during this week, these athletes became more united among themselves, by helping each other. Some became friends. A real community of spirit was created thanks to these workshops.
By providing them with these skills, your partners leave enriched with new “skills” thanks to you – skills that they will keep for life.
Absolutely. What is at the heart of what we do around the Olympic and Paralympic Games is whether we can add value to the lives and experiences of athletes. We want to help them achieve their goals, whether it is by removing a barrier or by giving them a boost.
On May 28, rap superstar Post Malone gave a concert, as part of “Visa Live at the Louvre”, in this highly prestigious venue… We know that you started your professional life in the music industry. Could you be the one responsible for this unexpected concert?
Yes, it’s me! (Laughs.) It’s funny because I find myself, now that I’m the Chief Marketing Officer of Visa, working very regularly with the music industry. So I spent a lot of time there early on in my career, at Motown, at Def Jam… What I find fascinating is how pervasive the culture at the heart of that music has become.
This unprecedented concert at the Louvre, broadcast on the Roblox gaming platform, is the perfect illustration. Should we expect more collaborations between Visa and the world of music?
Yes, 100%! We have to be as close as possible to creators, to video games (Roblox, with its 72 million daily active users, has enormous potential), to sports… And the area that we had not yet fully invested in, while it is a point of convergence for all other disciplines today, is music. So we have to look at the entire ecosystem closely: what are the things that music fans are missing? How can we help artists do what they have not been able to do until now?
An example?
The most rewarding moment of the Louvre concert was hearing Post Malone say, repeatedly, ” I can’t believe I’m here playing at the Louvre.“And his team told us: “He’s been talking about it for weeks.“So, we want to offer artists the opportunity to do new things.
It’s an idea to remember: to offer a unique experience to both the public and the artist who comes to play…
Of course. For some collaborations, it’s just about offering an artist a check for a live performance. And you can feel it when the artist is eager to leave the stage and be done – in those cases, there’s a lack of energy between the audience and the person on stage. With our collabs, we try to create something completely different: to experience magical and unique moments. And when we do, we get the kind of performances we’ve seen with RaiNao, Ayra Starr, Post Malone, DJ Kungs… We want more!
These new concerts are intended to be put together in the greatest secrecy. What can you say about the upcoming ones?
Without revealing too much, I can assure you that Visa Live at the Louvre will not be a unique event. We will recreate these magical moments in other places, other settings… You see the artist in an environment that gives a completely different perspective of his talent. It has nothing to do with a performance in a stadium or a festival where you find yourself with tens of thousands of spectators. For our lives, the environment will always be exceptional so that the artists and fans leave with a unique souvenir…
You have an impressive CV: you have worked for music labels, Buzzfeed, PepsiCo, BlackRock… Which of these experiences brings you the most today?
First of all, my time at Def Jam was a defining moment. When I was there in the 90s, some people said hip-hop wouldn’t last. Slowly, we all saw that it was starting to shape global culture. It became clear that it wasn’t just about the music anymore. It was about the visuals, the fashion, the entrepreneurship… And the spirit of the music itself was that you could really succeed outside of the mainstream and be yourself. All the lessons I learned at Def Jam—the importance of connecting culture and commerce—I’ve been able to take with me ever since, but I would say the same thing about every company I’ve been a part of.
You also worked for BlackRock, a giant in financial asset management…
My time there was important because I acquired strong B2B skills and a deep understanding of financial services. I was at BlackRock for five years(from 2017 to 2022, editor’s note). During this period, I noticed how the general public’s relationship with money was changing.
How so ?
I’ve noticed that a growing group of people are becoming more interested in their money: how they earn it, how they spend it, how they borrow it, how they save it, how they invest it… And this awareness contributes in some way to their overall sense of well-being.
“WITH THE ATHLETES OF THE GAMES, WE COME TOGETHER AROUND THE SAME VALUES.”
Earlier this year, you had content creators advise athletes participating in the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Why this connection between these two worlds?
For a while now, the creator economy has been fascinating, with young people aspiring to become creators themselves, others who draw inspiration from them for their communication needs, and still others who turn to them for advice. We all need to create content or consult it at one time or another.
You also follow the world of video games closely.
Yes, because the digital assets created there become a form of value exchange that we cannot ignore – these digital assets are also a form of currency. Just like the credit card that Visa founder Dee Hock first brandished in 1958…
And what do you think about the increasing dematerialization of payments?
The way we make payments will continue to change. Not so long ago, you would swipe your card on some kind of terminal, enter a code… Before we went to contactless, to mobile payments… By far the most important thing in people’s lives is the mobile phone, because it brings together everything we’re talking about. And it’s clear that we’re moving towards a cashless society. Because cashless brings more trust in transactions, security, it’s more convenient… It’s the next logical step for our transactions: in the past, we used to use very heavy coins, it was difficult to move around with them. Then people thought that paper money was a better solution. And today, we’ve gone digital. And tomorrow, biometric payment – which will be done without any “friction” at the time of payment.
Exactly, how can we promote a player like Visa in a world of biometric payments?
It’s a great challenge. We believe in two things: first, that the transaction remains an important moment, it’s a symbol of people moving forward, which is kind of at the heart of our brand ethos. Second, that it’s important to make sure that people, when they make a transaction – whether they see the brand or not at that moment – always think of Visa. Hence the importance of being deeply integrated into their lives through, among other things, these “passion areas” that are music, video games, the creator economy…
Thirty years ago, you started out with a label, and not just any label: Def Jam.
I was there in the early to mid 90s, crazy time! We signed Jay Z, Kanye West, DMX…
Hip-hop labels had a head start in marketing.
Back then, there were all sorts of questions that were constantly being asked: When do kids get out of school? Where do they congregate? Who are the people who are conveying messages that they’re actually paying attention to? Where are the places where information is being exchanged? That’s how all of marketing came about. It’s pretty amazing that it’s still going on today, and people have kind of copied that playbook, to some extent…
Interview with Laurence Rémila & Zoé S.
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#Living #magical #moments
