When Discover Financial Services last year launched its "Peggy" television commercials, it did not expect the character to take on a life of its own.
But the foreign representative, a bearded man who provides lousy customer service for a fictitious credit card company, has done just that, largely because of social media, Larisa Drake, Discover's vice president of brand marketing, said in an interview Monday.
"When we launched the Peggy TV ad campaign in the fall of 2010 we talked about doing social media, but we did not do it right away," she said. A fan of the character beat Discover to it and started a Peggy page on Facebook.
Discover in mid-September launched its own Peggy page. The brand's lead advertising agency since 2006, The Martin Agency of Richmond, Va., initially suggested promoting Peggy on social media, Drake said.
The character now also has several other consumer-created fan pages, creating a vehicle by which Discover can differentiate its services from other, potentially bad, credit card companies.
Peggy also started a Twitter account under the name @MyNameIs_Peggy about four weeks ago, according to Discover. Discover tracks how often Peggy is tweeted by consumers, and he posts his own tweets, Drake says.
The key to using Peggy in social media is getting customers interested in what Discover has to offer credit card customers, Drake emphasized.
"We're really pleased with how much engagement we get from the [Facebook] site," she said.
Peggy even helped out with a marriage proposal online. A Brooklyn man named Greg asked if Peggy could post hold up a proposal sign, asking his girlfriend to marry him, in a photo on Peggy's Facebook page. Discover did him one better and had the Peggy character create a 30-second video wherein he got down on one knee and proposed on Greg's behalf.
Greg's girlfriend, Julie, said yes. The couple even invited Peggy to the wedding.
The burgeoning interest in Peggy also spurred Discover to do a promotion with the character in conjunction with its sponsorship relationship as the official credit card of Six Flags amusement parks.
The Martin Agency came up with the concept of having Peggy win a trip to Six Flags for providing the lowest amount of rewards for the fictitious USA Prime Credit card program, Drake explained. Peggy then posted photos and status updates on his Facebook page during June to keep fans up to date on his trip. Along the way, Peggy finds out about the benefits of the Discover Card, including the 5% cash-back bonus and its "better" customer service.
"With social media, we're very much interested in finding relevant ways to connect with customers and new prospects," said Drake. "With Peggy, we found that the idea of poor customer service resonated with consumers across multiple industries, and some even refer to getting 'Peggyed' or they say they 'talked to Peggy.' " Clearly, Discover stands for the opposite experience, she said.
And on Twitter, Discover has found that consumers want to talk about their bad customer-service experiences, which can be a "source of differentiation," Drake said.
In terms of future plans for Peggy, Discover plans to see how the social media effort plays out.
"We really want this to continue to develop organically," said Drake. "We are focusing on engaging with our customers and with getting consumers who might become customers to consider our [card] product."
However, Peggy will continue to comment on the benefits of Discover cards, including how many locations accept the card, she said.
