A pair of overlapping or interlocking red and yellow circles are as familiar to most consumers as the Golden Arches, the “swoosh” or the bright orange jug in the detergent aisle. Mastercard’s logo is an iconic piece of branded geometry; one that has remained relatively unchanged since its inception in the 1960s and has consistently delivered brand recognition so strong that it has been used alone, without accompanying wordmark or slogan, since 2018.

See all of Ad Age's 2022 Marketers of the Year here.

But for the past few years, the payments company headquartered just outside New York City has been pursuing another, perhaps even more ambitious marketing mission: creating a complementary melody—“the sound equivalent of our iconic red and yellow circles”—to further reinforce its corporate identity at every touch point.

The establishment of the sonic brand, as well as other adventurous marketing moves, has established Mastercard not just as a leader in the payments sector, but a brand watched by chief marketers across many industries who are looking for ways to break through to modern consumers. 

Raja Rajamannar, Mastercard’s chief marketing and communications officer, impressed a crowd of marketing executives at an Association of National Advertisers conference in October while detailing how the brand has created a digital marketing engine, in which it uses artificial intelligence to look at micro-trends and create and serve up ads based on those trends. 

He also put Mastercard’s multisensory marketing on full display, including how it has also created its own restaurants—a growing chain of eateries located in Mexico City; São Paulo, Brazil; and Rome—as well as its own fragrances in its brand colors of red and yellow.

But it is Mastercard’s sonic branding that has made the most waves.

Giving sound center stage

When Mastercard first began considering how to show up in different environments, a trend emerged: the rise of smart speakers, wearables and other tech that’s “more voice-driven versus screen-driven,” Rajamannar said in an interview. “So we said this is one reason why we definitely have to show up as a brand in an audio format,” he said.

And since the concept’s formal launch nearly three years ago, Mastercard has continued to double down on its sonic branding, venturing beyond just an upbeat sequence that can be heard in the company’s commercials or whenever a customer taps their Mastercard at the more than 300 million worldwide points-of-sale that have such audio capabilities.

In June of this year, the payments giant tapped Swedish music producer and songwriter Niclas Molinder to craft “Priceless,” an original 10-song album by relatively obscure musicians that he found by sifting through YouTube and SoundCloud.

But these are not “corporate anthems,” Rajamannar stressed, instead positioning them as genuinely enjoyable songs that subtly weave Mastercard’s “sonic signature” into pieces of pop music.

Accessibility and inclusion for all

Mastercard has not just given sound a starring role in the curation of its modern brand identity, but has also seized on audio—as well as our sense of touch—to build accessible, disability-inclusive campaigns and products for all consumers. Case in point: the Touch Card.

Launched toward the end of 2021 after more than two years in development, according to Rajamannar, Mastercard’s line of Touch Cards for blind and low vision people use a trio of distinct rounded, squarish and triangular notches that allow users to tell by feel whether they’re holding a credit, debit or prepaid card.

And in March, the company and McCann New York worked together to pioneer a unique TV campaign for the tactile cards dubbed “Spotlight,” which not only shows a blind woman using her Mastercard Touch Card to order a latte at her local coffee shop, but also describes everything on-screen “so more people can experience it,” a narrator says at the opening of the commercial.

“There is lots of untapped potential to make marketing and advertising much more accessible and much more inclusive,” said Clark Rachfal, the American Council of the Blind’s director of advocacy and governmental affairs.

When companies make a noticeable effort to add audio descriptions to their commercials or alt text to their images on social media, Rachfal continued, it “positions them to be well-received” by people living with disabilities, including the more than 35 million who the American Foundation for the Blind estimates have some sort of visual impairment.

And for Rajamannar, who also sits on the Ad Council’s board of directors, stifling users’ financial independence by making them rely on muscle memory or the kindness of strangers to identify which payment card is which was something Mastercard could no longer abide by. “We stand by what is right, we take a stance and we act on it,” he said.

Doing right means doing well

The bold marketing gambits seem to be paying off, helping to fuel business momentum that allowed Mastercard to report net revenue growth of 15% in the third quarter. 

The company has continued to throw support behind its Cannes Lion-winning True Name program that allows customers to easily change the name displayed on their credit cards and monthly statements or select gender nonbinary honorifics like “Mx.” The T-Mobile Money debit card and Canada’s Bank of Montreal both adopted the feature earlier in 2022, while Amsterdam-based bank and fintech company Bunq signed on last year.

This summer, a revolutionary ad from McCann and The Mill for Mastercard’s UEFA Champions League sponsorship deployed cutting-edge VFX to recreate a young Lionel Messi with such accuracy that watching the spot gave the real-life soccer great “goosebumps,” the Argentinian athlete is quoted as saying.

And in October, a new campaign tied to “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” began rolling out across social media, movie theaters and linear and connected TV to promote Black women-owned small businesses. Mastercard also plans a shoppable small business marketplace on Instagram for a select number of partners.

“We are also very focused on ‘ROI,’ return on investment. And for every one of our initiatives that we do that are grounded in purpose, the return on investment has been fantastic,” Rajamannar said. “When you do the right things by people, business also will grow.”

See all of Ad Age's 2022 Marketers of the Year here.