Imagine the college of your child's choice making a profit from your child's debt-load. Can't imagine it? When a person opens a credit card in conjunction with an academic institution, their favorite retailer or otherwise, everyone profits except the cardholder.
An article in the Sunday, 10.19.03 edition of The Charlotte Observer asks, "What's Next? Krispy Creme Credit cards?" Co-branding was all the rage from 1992-99 but proved unprofitable to the banks creating these partnerships/campaigns. The co-branding/partnership is, however, back in style.
Co-branding is a great strategy and a brilliant marketing technique. According to Cardweb.com, there are more than 620 million credit cards in use. This co-branding strategy is certainly one way for a card issuer to distinguish itself from the thousands of others.
But, no matter what your loyalty to a retailer, college or otherwise, check the fine print. The profit earned from your loyalty is most times not worth the cost of your high-interest debt-load and the subsequent consequence on your all knowing credit report.
hi,Susan i'm a third year student in university and am currently doing a proposal on branding of credit cards and was wondering if you would have any usefull tips or e-mail addreses that might be able to help me along my bumoy way. I found your article very interesting and it gave me a good insight into this area. Look forward to hearing from you.
Posted by: RONALD MARTIN | April 19, 2004 at 01:34 PM