DMNews: Visa Has an Idea to Attract Twentysomethings

Visa USA has hit on a new online marketing concept to understand the attitudes of adults ages 18 to 29, an audience that is hard to pin down for most marketers. A contest on IdeasHappen.com has attracted 1 million unique visitors since the start of April. Of them, 8,500 people have submitted ideas toward a $25,000 prize to put their concepts into action.

"We want to be their brand of choice, and by doing this program, they learn more about us, we learn more about them, what's important to them, what's on their mind, what's going on in their lives," said Nancy Friedman, vice president of advertising at Visa USA, San Francisco.

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The notion behind "Ideas Happen" is to invite adults 18 to 29 to pitch their entrepreneurial, community-related or personal dreams online.

The site is a Visa/MSN joint venture, with MSN developing and hosting the site. Using MSN's .NET passport accounts, contestants can register automatically.

I understand the point is not to hard sell or directly acquire customers, but why link the Visa logo featured at the bottom of the site to Visa's page? If I do click on it, I'm interested, right? So why not send these visitors to a specific page or subsite, instead of a boring corporate country selector?