New Year Communication for Visa

Winter holidays, and especially New Year's Eve, are real creativity competitions for all SMM teams. Since social networks are filled with various festive content, our main goal for Visa pages was to communicate not only effectively, but also creatively.


"New Year is an event that people start preparing for in September, and sometimes even earlier. This is a period of very strong competition for the audience's attention. Everyone becomes more active, even those who have been silent and have not set up advertising during the year. Therefore, the approach to content and its promotion is very important. It is necessary to take into account the likelihood of an increase in advertising prices and the possibility of a decrease in organic reach. That is why it is very important to determine the goals of your communication in advance, take into account possible risks and try to prepare content in advance. Especially when you work in the international market, because here you also need to take into account local features of content perception," - Natalka Dumnych, SMM Head.

Our number one priority was to develop a concept that would make Visa stand out from all the Christmas content on social media. At the same time, it had to be something that would resonate with a large number of people. 
Spoiler: we did it.

It was decided to prepare two different concepts for the New Year. The first one is for Ukraine. The second one is for five countries at once: Georgia, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.

Why is that? For effective communication in social networks of Ukraine, it is extremely important to take into account the peculiarities of martial law and create content that will be relevant and sensitive to the current situation.
Therefore, for the Ukrainian market we have developed a special concept "Support those who support", taking into account the local experience of the past year. It was decided to make people the main characters - brave, free, united. The main idea was that the New Year is, first of all, about unity, support and mutual assistance. After all, it is people who create this magical festive atmosphere and make New Year's miracles with their own hands. Visa actively supports communities and charitable initiatives in Ukraine. Supporting businesses together with Charitable Courage, women entrepreneurs within the framework of the “Brave” business accelerator, helping premature babies through the “Nebaduzhi” initiative, people affected by war, and animals are just some of the causes that Visa was involved in in 2024. With this message, we wanted to thank various communities once again for their activities and inspire them to new joint causes in the coming year.

For a group of five countries, we were looking for a message that would best resonate with Visa's target audience. And it was decided to ... indulge a little! Nottingham Trent University in the article “Expert Blog: How Gen Z are using the past to feel positive about the future” notes that Gen Z and millennials are one of the most nostalgic generations. As many as 48% of people surveyed for the article are concerned that life is moving too fast. Therefore, they tend to delve more and more into memories of past years. And the nostalgia trend, accordingly, is actively gaining momentum among these two age categories.
In general, nostalgic messages are very relevant during the winter holidays. After all, the New Year is a time to remember all the good things that happened to us this year, as well as to “shake off the dust” from warm annual traditions: watching your favorite movies, spending a cozy evening with your family, exchanging gifts, and preparing your favorite dish according to a recipe that has been tested over the years and generations.

This is how the concept of Newstalgy (New/nostalgy) appeared, which combines nostalgia and the brand's desire for innovation and creating something new - to create new memories with Visa. The “New” part says that we offer our audience not to miss the past, but to remember it with pride and be inspired by it. The key message was “Create New memories with Visa,” because Visa is a part of every memory. We share important moments with her: we buy a gift for our loved one that she has been dreaming of, we take ourselves on a long-awaited vacation (because we deserve a quality vacation!), we plan meetings with friends to find out all the latest news, and we spontaneously buy tickets home because we simply miss our family.

We have decided on the main concepts. What next? New Year's publications should increase engagement on the pages, while forming a strong association: Visa is an indispensable assistant in preparing for the holidays. We started working on ideas for content that would combine three golden points:

● Audience behavioral trends.
● The most effective formats, based on our previous work experience. Namely, Reels and carousels.
● Current social media trends.

“It was important for us that each piece of content was “at the intersection” of these three aspects. And of course, it reflected Visa's values ​​and the main message of New Year's communication: Visa is there to help you create the perfect New Year's atmosphere. Accordingly, each piece of content was tied to the brand and the benefits it provides to the audience: convenient payments, advantageous offers for shopping, recreation, etc.” — Maryna Mikieladze, SMM Team Lead.

Let's take a closer look at the last point - social media trends. Because where would we be without them on the way to a successful content plan? Let's recall what was popular for the winter of 2023:

● VFX — 3D animation
● Current memes
● Content format with unusual angles
● Q&A video format

We used each of them, qualitatively adapting the ideas for different countries and social networks. Especially for the winter holidays, it was decided to organize and conduct filming in order to fulfill two key tasks at once:

– Create original, recognizable visuals in Visa's brand colors.
– Create relevant, interesting, trendy content that cannot be created from stock visuals.

A real favorite among Visa subscribers in different countries was Reels with a Christmas tree bursting with gifts. It was made using VFX.

 

"We couldn't ignore the trend on social networks for VFX. The main task was to create interesting and dynamic Reels using a Visa card. The work was carried out in two stages: first, a New Year's location was filmed, into which contractors later installed a bright animation of the card exploding. Even the gifts were decorated in Visa's brand colors. The animation was enhanced with sound effects, making it attractive and effective," — Daria Karanda, SMM Designer.