Raja Rajamannar on Mastercard’s mission, the future of marketing, and authenticity

For Raja Rajamannar, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mastercard, the company mission is simple—”it’s all about connecting everyone to priceless possibilities.” Mastercard’s incredibly large consumer base of almost 2.3 billion people globally gives the company the unique ability to do just that, something Raja was determined to support and grow upon joining a decade ago.

Raja has transformed Mastercard into one of the fastest-growing brands in the world, from revolutionizing the long-standing “Priceless” campaign to spearheading the Stand Up To Cancer partnership. He is also a Wall Street Journal-bestselling author—his book “Quantum Marketing: Mastering the New Marketing Mindset for Tomorrow’s Consumers” has become a touchstone for marketing leaders and academics around the world.

In his keynote address at Yelp’s first-ever Ad Summit, Raja reflected on three key factors that helped shape Mastercard’s overall marketing strategy and amplify Mastercard’s reputation as one of the top 10 most valuable global brands. Consider how you can apply these principles to your own brand strategy for growth, customer relationships, and more.

1. Serve your customers with sincerity and inclusivity

“When you pursue your purpose in a sincere way and when you serve people in a sincere way, profits will follow… When you look at Mastercard’s purpose, we have put it in a very small sentence. It is all about connecting everyone to priceless possibilities…

What priceless [means] to me may be very different to somebody who is an ultra-high net worth individual, and it might be very different than somebody who is at the bottom of the economic pyramid. What is priceless to each one of them is different.

So we try to understand [each person] and try to connect them to their possibilities. This is something which is not meant to be only a corporate mission statement, but this is something which we try to live and bring to life every single day.”

2. Define authenticity and purpose in your mission

“When we started [following our purpose] consistently—not for political correctness, not for getting PR soundbites, but we were doing it with a sincere intent and consistency—our brands started getting associated positively. And today we are one of the top most liked brands…

If you look at Priceless as a campaign, the fundamental premise is that there are things in life that are truly priceless that you cannot buy with money. Those are the things that you should concern yourself with. For everything else that’s trivial, literally, leave it to Mastercard to take care of for you. This was the fundamental premise. It instantly connected with consumers…

We are truly making a difference, and what happens is not only do consumers feel very good about it, our employees feel extremely positive about it.”

3. Explore out-of-the-box marketing

“From [having] an advertising-led marketing strategy, we pivoted to an experiences-led marketing strategy. So from storytelling, we went to what we call storymaking. That was one big thing. Second, Priceless was being used only in advertising, but we said, “Can we go through all four P’s of marketing?” Which means, can [we] infuse pricelessness into everything that we do? And that change immediately gave a boost to our brand…

We also went into areas like multisensory marketing where you leverage all the five senses of consumers to get into their hearts and minds and engage them effectively. And that has brought us to be the world’s number one audio brand for four years in a row.”

Other key moments from Raja Rajamannar’s fireside chat:

• Raja on generative AI
• Raja on Mastercard’s Digital Doors platform

Watch his full keynote session below from Yelp’s 2023 Ad Summit—available on-demand along with all other sessions from the day.