Getting credit beyond credit cards by making the invisible visible
On Thursday 3rd October, as part of Transform Live North America, Design Bridge and Partners hosted a panel talk, ‘Getting credit beyond credit cards by making the invisible visible’. Rachel Darivoff, Strategy Director, New York, was joined by Lucy Fielding, Vice President Global Brand Strategy & Design, Mastercard, to showcase our award-winning work for Mastercard Technology.
Mastercard was overlooked as a key player in the technology landscape — often represented as ‘just a credit card company’, rather than the technology leader it’s always been. Mastercard pioneers much of the digital safety, security and payments technology around the world — but you wouldn’t know it because this critical infrastructure is invisible and intangible.
Alongside the Mastercard team, we created the tools to showcase the impact Mastercard has on billions of people every day, through a visual and verbal expression that reflects the cutting-edge work done by Technology team to build systems that never fail, for a world that never stops, and further solidifies Mastercard as an organisation built around technology.
Rachel and Lucy shared insights on the challenge of communicating complex, intangible technologies, by using the power of storytelling to tell tech stories with humanity and shift the focus to intent and impact. Creating a visual identity that signals a modern, sophisticated, human-centred company that’s right at home in the tech world.
The brand expression led to a shift in perceptions with applicants now seeing Mastercard as a technology company and a 44% increase in interest in applications for technology roles. Internally, teams grasped the importance of communicating the technology strategy, leading to a 92% satisfaction and comprehension rate of how Mastercard’s tech strategy operates. Following the new identity announcement, there was a 5x increase in employee engagement compared to previous surveys.
