Two tickets to The Happening: $20.00. The Season 6 DVD of 24: $58.98. A studio-branded credit card from 20th Century Fox: priceless.
At least that’s the perception the folks at Fox Licensing & Merchandising are hoping for this fall when it launches its new Fox Entertainment Rewards card in partnership with Washington Mutual bank.
Promising "powerfully compelling benefits to consumers looking for the best in entertainment along with great purchasing power," according to a press release, Fox will join other media properties, including ESPN, in testing whether such a broadly focused "affinity" card can click in the fickle consumer market.
The potential value goes beyond the obvious appeal of the credit business. In addition to offering direct purchasing on everything from DVDs to newspaper subscriptions from its parent, News Corp., Fox can vacuum up the customer purchasing data so coveted in this digital era.
Neither Fox nor WaMu offered further details on the venture, so we can only wonder what graphics might grace the media plastic—Homer Simpson perhaps, as B&C’s art department imagined it (above)?—or how 24’s Jack Bauer might use it to save the world.
