When Discover Financial Services launched its “Peggy” television commercials late last year, the card brand had no idea the the character would take on a life of its own.
But the Third World call-center rep who provides lousy customer service for a fictitious credit card company has done just that, largely because of social media, Larisa Drake, Discover vice president of brand marketing, told ISO&Agent Weekly in an interview.
“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. Instead, 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, Richmond, Va.-based The Martin Agency, 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 tweeting on Twitter 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,” he said, noting Peggy even helped out with a marriage proposal online. Peggy received a request from a Brooklyn man who asked if Peggy could hold up a proposal sign asking his girlfriend to marry him on Peggy’s page.
Discover did one better and had the Peggy character star in a proposal video it posted on Peggy’s Facebook page. Peggy was even invited to the wedding.
The burgeoning interest in Peggy also spurred Discover to create 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 idea 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 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,” says 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 noted.
