By Tim Castleman

Chase Card Services announced last week its first advertising campaign focused solely on reaching Hispanic Americans. While Chase has provided Spanish-language direct mail pieces and bilingual customer service support in the past, the new “Confia en Ti, Confia en Chase” campaign is the first time Chase is advertising on Spanish-language TV and Internet sites. (”Confia en Ti, Confia en Chase” translates roughly to “Believe in Yourself, Believe in Chase” in English.)

“Chase has a significant Hispanic customer base, but we can do a better job of connecting with them,” said Carter Franke, chief marketing officer for Chase Card Services. “In talking with current and prospective Hispanic customers during consumer research, we found that we must move to an integrated, Spanish-language marketing effort that is culturally relevant to Hispanics to increase credit card penetration with this audience.”

While the Hispanic population is the largest and fastest-growing minority in the United States, less than 45 percent of Hispanics in the U.S. have credit cards. According to figures provided by Chase, the U.S. Hispanic population is currently at 43.5 million with expected growth to 48 million by 2010, and 60 million by 2020. The purchasing power of Hispanics in the U.S. was nearly $736 billion in 2005 and expected to spike to nearly $1 trillion by 2010.

Chase TV spots are running on Univision, Telemundo, Telefutura, and Galavision, while online advertisements will show up on AOL Latino, MSN Latino, Terra Online, and Univision Online.

By Justin McHenry

Citi is offering cardholders of their American Airlines AAdvantage credit cards the opportunity for privileged access to exclusive live performances and possibly access to the performers themselves via its Private Pass program. Launching this coming Monday, October 9, the program will allow cardholders to buy tickets to a series of private, cardmember-only concerts featuring major recording artists at venues nationwide. Those announced initially include Aerosmith, Tony Bennett, Mary J. Blige and Dave Matthews. In addition, some cardmembers will get the chance to meet artists backstage and win signed memorabilia.

According to Citi, the concerts are part of an overall Private Pass website that will offer AAdvantage cardmembers perks such as VIP parking, private entrance to venues, priority/early seating, backstage access, artist meet-and-greets, nightclub and comedy club access, and guaranteed golf course access.

Citi’s private concerts are indicative of a trend in the credit card industry, in which offering exclusive “experiences” has become an increasingly popular way to reward credit card customers. Many cards offer similar cash back or merchandise rewards programs, thus making the promise of a unique experience a greater motivator to potential credit card customers. In addition to exclusive concert and event privileges, credit cards have offered experiences such as throwing out the first pitch at a major league baseball game, private dinners/lessons from famous chefs, and others.

By Justin McHenry

After openly entertaining the thought of running its own credit card processing network, Bank of America has decided to stick with Visa, signing an agreement that will keep the two joined through 2011. Bank of America is the largest issuer of Visa cards.

Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis had told the Wall Street Journal back in April that he wasn’t pleased that Bank of America has been helping to build the Visa brand when it could be building its own. Lewis was quoted as saying “Why not become the old BankAmericard again?”