Discover Financial Services is combating a misconception about its credit and debit cards in its newest ads starring Jennifer Coolidge.

An ad released Tuesday shows the comedic actress taking a friend to the salon and offering to pay for the trip using a Discover card. When that friend questions if the establishment accepts Discover, Coolidge accuses her of being stuck in the past. Humorously ignorant of her hypocrisy, she then emerges from a hair dryer looking like a glam rock star from the 1970s.

The new ads are a continuation of the brand’s “Especially for Everyone” campaign launched late last year, which marked Coolidge’s debut for the brand. The latest creative push comes as Discover waits to find out whether its pending acquisition by Capital One, announced in February, will go through.

While the campaign has previously focused on Discover’s benefits and products, its latest ads aim to debunk a misconception that businesses don’t take Discover. The aim is to win new customers by familiarizing them with Discover’s widespread acceptance as a valid form of payment. The spot closes with a voice-over and text stating that 99% of U.S. businesses that accept credit cards also accept Discover.

Misconceptions about Discover’s acceptance linger from the company’s early days of building a credit card network, said Jennifer Murillo, Discover’s chief marketing officer. 

“Discover is accepted virtually any place you would want to use a card in the U.S. and that’s something our card members know and understand,” she said. “But if you’re not a customer, you may not know that and that could be a reason that’s holding you back from being a customer.”

Discover is running the “Especially for Everyone” ads across social, digital, audio and TV channels. The salon spot will play on Hulu and Peacock and during major college football games, the Discover B1G Championship and Discover Winter Classic on linear TV. On social, Coolidge will post a series of Polaroid photos that capture behind-the-scenes moments from the production of the commercial. Further digital buys will tie ads about acceptance with holiday shopping visuals across platforms like Uber, Four Square and Yelp.

More from Ad Age: The best holiday ads of 2024 (so far)

Discover is also running hundreds of out-of-home ads that compare the acceptance of regional rituals to the acceptance of its cards nationwide with a larger investment in major cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington. It began displaying out-of-home ads two weeks ago and rolled out the rest of its media plan on Tuesday.

TBWA\Chiat\Day handled creative, Mindshare worked on media and Golin provided PR support. Discover will continue rolling out new “Especially for Everyone” ads that promote the wide acceptance of its cards, Murillo said.

Exclusive for Ad Age All Access subscribers: Ad Age’s profile of Discover including ad spending and marketing spending over time

Market share

Discover is one of the four major credit card networks alongside American Express, Visa and Mastercard. Each operates a communication system that banks and businesses rely on to process credit card transactions.

Of the four, Discover has the lowest market share as determined by global purchase volume and credit cards in circulation, according to an Oct. 18 report from Motley Fool Money that compiled data from the American Bankers Association, Federal Reserve and the Nilson Report.

There are 71.5 million Discover credit cards in circulation around the world, accounting for 2% of all credit cards in use, according to the report, which found that Discover cards made up $256 billion of global purchase volume in 2023, giving it a 1% share. As the next largest network, American Express has nearly twice as many credit cards in use that made up $1.7 trillion, or 9%, of global purchase volume last year.

Visa and Mastercard boast much higher figures but operate on a different model. Discover and American Express are closed credit card networks, meaning they issue cards directly to customers. Visa and Mastercard are open credit card networks that allow financial institutions such as JPMorgan Chase and Citibank to issue their credit cards to customers.

Discover also offers debit cards and online banking services.

Discover waits on big changes

Discover is currently in a transitional phase as it waits to be acquired by Capital One for $35 billion. Should the deal surmount antitrust regulatory concerns, the combined company would surpass JPMorgan Chase as the largest credit card issuer and would have $250 billion in outstanding credit card loans, the New York attorney general’s office noted in an October court filing. The combined company would have a market share of more than 30%, said New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Analysts expect that Donald Trump’s election should create a lax regulatory environment that eases the deal’s completion, Bloomberg reported. Capital One has said the deal is scheduled to be completed early next year, per the report. It’s currently pending approval from the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

“Until that is all approved and the companies do come together, if that happens … we’re competitors,” Murillo said, declining to provide details about how Discover is adapting its marketing function for the completion of the deal.

Discover also saw a series of fast-paced CEO changes beginning last year. In August 2023, then-CEO Roger Hochschild resigned not long after the company disclosed that it had been overcharging merchants since 2007—an issue that has become very expensive to solve. John Owen briefly took over as interim CEO before Michael G. Rhodes stepped up as CEO in December.

Rhodes was also not long for the position, however, as he departed to become CEO of Ally Financial in March. Discover then stated Rhodes was not expected to have a long-term role with the company and appointed Michael Shepherd as interim CEO in March.

Despite these shifts, Murillo said Discover has maintained a consistent marketing strategy.

Discover spent $1.2 billion on U.S. advertising in 2023, a 12.5% increase from the year prior, according to Ad Age’s Leading National Advertisers 2024 report. That spend made it the 50th biggest ad spender in the country last year. American Express came in sixth, having spent $4.1 billion in the year, a 5% decrease from 2022.