Visa Tap-N-Go Ads Piss Us Off

By consumerist.com July 11, 2007

We loathe these Visa commercials. They show commerce going along like clockwork. People paying with their tap-and-go Visa card. Getting their donuts. Until one guy pay with cash. Everything screeches to a halt. He gets looks from the cashier and other customers. He leaves with his goods and his quaint “change,” chagrined. Man, you don’t wanna be that guy. No, you wanna be like the efficient credit card bots. They’re cool. Being in debt is cool. Who cares if they have 20% APRs.
Hey, TBWA/Chiat/Day/Schlockmeisters, for your next iteration, why not link paying with cash to terrorism?

Cash is nice. You don’t have to borrow money from anyone, even temporarily, to use it. There’s no terms of service or contract to sign. That’s because it’s money. Cold hard American cash. People shouldn’t be made to feel bad for using it.

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Comments

  1. jjason82 says:
    July 21, 2007 at 11:33 am

    As someone who’s worked in retail, not only are those commercials insulting, they’re not even true. When a customer pays cash it is a very quick transaction. Drawer opens right away, giving the customer their change takes about ten seconds and you’re good to move on. When a customer pays with a credit card, however, the whole process grinds to a halt as you wait for the card to be approved. It isn’t instant like they portray on TV. If you get a fast machine it might take as little as 20 seconds, (which is still not instant mind you) but if you get a slow one it can take as long as one or two minutes. That’s one or two minutes where the whole line has to do nothing but stand there as you wait and wait and wait for the card to be approved. Cash is instant, plastic is not.

  2. waafu says:
    September 1, 2007 at 3:20 am

    In regards to the elephant commercial; the name on the card is Ella Phant,I believe. I do hate the idea that Visa is trying to make the use of cash as being anti-social.

  3. quadjimo says:
    September 4, 2007 at 2:05 am

    The point of the commercial is that paying with cash slows down everything. I work in a very busy convenience store near a large university and I can tell you nothing could be further from the truth. Cash customers are at least 3X faster to get in and out of the store than credit card customers, especially when a majority of them are students getting a drink and a pack of gum and charging it!(Which we have to pay a processing fee on.) Everyone should carry at least a few dollars in cash.

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