Show simple item record

dc.contributor.authorBoone, Laurence
dc.contributor.authorBreynaert, Laurence
dc.contributor.authorLemmens, Julie
dc.date.accessioned2021-04-27T19:02:03Z
dc.date.available2021-04-27T19:02:03Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12127/6863
dc.description.abstractMastercard has a long-standing reputation, striving for a world beyond cash. Its core business consists of offering payment cards towards banks. The role of Mastercard is being an intermediary between banks, cardholders and merchants. Over the years, Mastercard has grown into an established value in the financial sector. Besides its well-known trust and safety, the company is also known for its continuous innovation. One of its most recent initiatives is the set-up of a Donation Platform, permitting cardholders to donate to charities through their Mastercard usage. However, despite its great mission, the Donation Platform has faced several challenges, resulting in a low registration rate. Therefore, the biggest challenge has become: "How can Mastercard improve its Donation Platform in order to acquire and retain more active users?" That being said, there are several obstacles that Mastercard should tackle in order to achieve a strong position in the donation market. These barriers are: (1) Lack of user-friendliness, (2) Misunderstanding of Mastercard's role, (3) Trust issues, (4) Low awareness, and (5) Lack of information and communication. To gain insights on how to deal with these bottlenecks, qualitative research in the form of semi-structured interviews and online discussion groups, has been conducted. Besides this qualitative research, a profound analysis about the environment was established in order to grasp the current positioning of the Donation Platform and to determine its growth strategy. All conducted research presented valuable insights, some of which can be literally translated into recommendations. First of all, trust is a key driver for donating. Concerns about the legitimacy and the security of the website were brought up, as people could not spot a link between the Donation Platform and Mastercard's official website. In general, the lack of information was a recurring factor on all aspects of the Donation Platform and this should be improved. Secondly, a personal fit with the charity is essential and this is why participants prefer the offer of multiple good causes. Thirdly, micro-donations were well received, bearing one necessary condition in mind: having an overview of their donations, in the form of a dashboard or, if selected, via an update email. To wrap up, the majority of participants preferred social media as the main communication channel. To maintain a good balance between digital and physical communication, advertising via both monthly statements and social media can be beneficial to reach our target group. To fully drive the success of the platform, we came up with additional propositions. Firstly, implementing video allows to provide information in a more entertaining way. Secondly, the issue of trust and security can be bypassed by integrating the Donation platform in Mastercard's official website. To enhance communication, a third recommendation is to apply big data. This could be useful in optimizing SEM and especially in tailoring the marketing strategy towards consumers. Ultimately, to exploit as many opportunities as possible, Mastercard could enter the B2B market by making the Donation Platform available for corporate cards. This would be a win-win situation for both Mastercard and the partnering company, as the latter one benefits from this CSR action.
dc.language.isoen
dc.titleFor you a little for them a lot: A qualitative research to drive the success of the donation platform
dc.source.numberofpages151
vlerick.knowledgedomainMarketing & Sales
vlerick.supervisorBriers, Barbara
dc.identifier.vperid192584
vlerick.companynameMasterCard Europe
vlerick.companysupervisorFuller, Mary
vlerick.programmeM3
vlerick.typebusresprojectIn-Company Project


This item appears in the following Collection(s)

Show simple item record