Maritz Gets MasterCard's Stamp Of Approval

<H1> Maritz Gets MasterCard's Stamp Of Approval</H1>By Stefani C. O'Connor

<B>M</B>asterCard International began putting its logo on Maritz Inc.'s Your Choice debit card earlier this month, sparking a relaunch of the 10-month-old incentive award program.

The move is expected to gain wider acceptance for the card among Maritz's corporate clients and participating retailers, and drive up the mega agency's ability to leverage its service capabilities.

Renamed the Your Choice MasterCard Card, the non-renewable award instrument has a set amount of points-each point equivalent to $1-that the cardholder can spend at selected merchant locations and travel suppliers.

The branding followed months of negotiation between management at MasterCard and Maritz, which had been striving to create greater recognition for the short-term, performance-based card.

When initially rolled out in September 1995, the card displayed a Your Choice logo on the front and Maritz's signature "M" on the back. Although the program was successful, with some 15,000 cards in the marketplace, the lack of an instant-response logo caused some front-line retail employees to hesitate when presented with the card, even though their organizations were participating merchants. Maritz then launched an extensive training program to educate its retailers about the award, and started talks with MasterCard about putting its logo on the card.

The Your Choice card had used a MasterCard network derived from suppliers participating in Maritz's long-term incentive award program, Exclusively Yours, which has been backed by a MasterCard card since its launch (<I>BTN</I>, April 17, 1995). However, because of policy regulations, the card provider balked when approached on the new card and declined to put its logo on any card that did not have a participant's name embossed on it.

"It was a security issue," said Dave Mulcahy, Maritz product manager for the Your Choice card. "MasterCard had a policy whereby the EY card does have the participant's name on it. We were successful in negotiating with MasterCard that the Your Choice card was a different type of product, and by placing only the corporate client's name on the card, we could meet their rules and regulations. After a series of months and conversations, they finally agreed that that would suffice."

The new card incorporates the MasterCard logo and hologram, as well as the Your Choice logo, the Maritz M, the corporate purchaser's name and the expiration date. The account number embossed on the card is a MasterCard number. As with credit cards, award recipients must sign the tamper-evident signature panel on the back of the card and are required to sign a sales receipt to complete a transaction. But recipients are not required to show proof of employment at the company when presenting the card.

The Your Choice cards are designed to be bought in bulk by corporations and distributed as performance rewards or gifts without being personalized. They come in three styles, seven core denominations ranging from $25 to $250 and expire six months after being awarded. Each card costs $6 plus the face value on the card.

Like its Exclusively Yours counterpart, the "quick-hit" card is issued by Boatmen's Bancshares Inc. out of its St. Louis-based Boatmen's National Bank. The $41 billion financial institution has been working with Maritz and MasterCard on such programs for more than 2 1/2 years.

"I don't think there's any question that the addition of the MasterCard logo to the card is going to help the product," said D. Mark Jackson, vice president of electronic banking for Boatmen's Bancshares. "The power of the brand in terms of consumer confidence, as well as merchant acceptance, will help the product considerably."

Indeed, in the short span the logo-stamped card has been available, Maritz has added 10 corporate clients for a total of 35, and 14 national merchant partners. These include the outlets and catalogs of such retailers as Eddie Bauer, The Sharper Image and Speigel Inc.

Selection of merchants is carefully calculated to reflect provision of "trophy" merchandise, and not simple day-to-day consumables like disposable diapers or gasoline; thus, the card may not be used at all MasterCard merchants.

Jackson said that because the card can be used in a variety of ways, it offered new market potential for both Boatmen's and Maritz, not the least of which is the Internet, where some participating merchants have Websites.

While Mulcahy conceded "we're all looking at the Internet," he stressed that the first priority was to get the new card "launched, established, accepted and made easy to use. It has to be successful with the award earner. If we don't do that, we don't need to worry about the Internet."

Mulcahy expected to get a good read on the revamped program after the end of the year because the fourth quarter is a natural for using the card for holiday gift programs. The company will have an "excellent in-house test of the product" when Maritz distributes the cards to its 6,500 employees as the holidays approach. "Lots of people give out gift certificates or turkey or ham for the holidays. This is an electronic gift certificate," he said.

Mulcahy noted that by October, the card will replace some paper certificates currently available in the Your Choice catalogue, such as travel on United Airlines and accommodations at Marriott Hotels. "We want to get away from paper certificates," Mulcahy said.

"With things like chip cards, prepaid cards and college cards out there today, I don't think there's any question this card is going to be a big hit, simply because it makes so much sense," he said. "People are looking to get out of the paper; this is one way."

Jackson characterized the Your Choice card as a precursor to the smart card. "What we've done with the host-based Your Choice card is to take existing technology, something that everybody's familiar with, and use that," he said. In a host-based system, an authorization comes back through the MasterCard network into Boatmen's system to authorize the transaction.

"The problem with the chip card today," Jackson said, "is the overall chicken-and-egg theory: People don't want to issue cards because there aren't all that many merchants that can accept the card through their terminals. At the same time, merchants aren't terribly interested in putting in terminals if there aren't that many cards out there. But I do think the day will come.