With football being a prime focus of the fall season, Visa Checkout is attempting to expand its presence as mobile payments become more prevalent. A multi-channel approach, Visa’s campaign to promote Visa Checkout takes numerous paths of reach to appeal to a variety of consumers, which in this case, are all tech-savvy football fans.

“Research shows that a lot of NFL participation takes place on multiple screens,” said Chris Curtin, global head of new platform marketing transformation and chief digital officer at Visa, San Francisco. “NFL fans are tech savvy.

“They are buying NFL products both online and in-store, and because of that, teaming with the NFL was an attractive sponsorship for Visa Checkout to utilize. There is a huge push towards digital, and that’s where our product resides and will be used.”

Reaping rewards
Visa is promoting a new national holiday called Footballentine’s Day on September 6, which has been created for football fans to thank their loved ones for dealing with their obsessive dedication to the sport. Gifts retailer 1800Flowers will deliver 10 free roses to users enrolled in Visa Checkout.

Pizza Hut is giving away one million free pizzas to consumers who pay with Visa Checkout. Users can participate starting September 7.

Both 1800Flowers have mobile ordering on their mobile apps, where users can pay via Visa Checkout. Customers can also pay via Visa Checkout on desktop.

Visa Checkout has also created two television commercials. One stars famous players Drew Brees, Colin Kaepernick, Andrew Luck and Larry Fitzgerald. The other commercial features professional surfer Kolohe Andino. They can be seen on air starting September 7.

The commercials promote the simplicity of using Visa Checkout and the fact that these professional athletes can incorporate the platform into their busy lives. The athletes are shown using Visa Checkout on their mobile phones while in the midst of playing football and surfing.

Visa executives attempted to make this campaign wide-ranging given an emerging demographic of smartphone users that are constantly watching videos and are increasingly making purchases on their mobile devices.

Up and coming
Online computer hardware and software retailer Newegg recently added Visa Checkout for desktop and mobile users and motivating trial by offering a 10 percent discount on all Visa Checkout purchases.

Retailers can be apprehensive of giving new payment systems a chance but also the potential for Visa Checkout’s capabilities. Given Newegg’s online limitations, the retailer must provide as many purchasing options to ensure a seamless checkout process (see story).

Pizza Hut has supported Visa Checkout from the beginning.

In fact, Pizza Hut and Staples were among the merchants that began accepting Visa Checkout, which promises to streamline mobile checkout by digitizing consumers’ credit cards.

The new offering from Visa seeks to make payment easier by storing credit-card information online so that e-payments can be made on participating merchants’ Web sites without entering anything other than a name and password. It is replacing Visa’s previous efforts to roll out a mobile wallet through the V.me offering (see story).

Since Visa has been a sponsor of the NFL for many years, its launch of Visa Checkout will likely gain a good bit of attention this season.

“For the past 50 years, Visa has stood for many things,” Mr. Curtin said. “It is universally accepted, has high standards for security and trust, and it has always stood for simplicity.

“Now in a digital world, given an increase of complexity in the payment experience, we saw an absolute need for Visa Checkout, which alleviates the issues of keying-in billing, shipping and credit card information repeatedly.”

Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is an editorial assistant on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York