The Art of Defensive Marketing

Why Visa and Mastercard Spend Billions to Stay on Top

Visa and Mastercard don’t have much in the way of real competition, yet both spend eye-watering amounts on marketing every year. Why? Because they understand something most businesses don’t: staying on top is just as hard as getting there.

Despite dominating the global payments industry, Visa spent over $1.3 billion last year on marketing - an 18% increase from the year before. Mastercard, too, pours hundreds of millions into advertising and high-profile sponsorships, including the UEFA Champions League.

This isn’t about awareness. It’s about defence. When you sponsor the Olympics and FIFA World Cup, you're not just buying media space, you’re reinforcing relevance. These sponsorships are strategic, designed to prevent new players from ever becoming household names. It’s not about converting sales. It’s about blocking out future competition.

For Visa and Mastercard, this is defensive marketing at its most powerful. They're not reacting to competitors, they're ensuring those competitors never gain traction. Their presence at the world’s biggest events reminds billions of consumers every day that they are the default brands for reliability and global access.

Most small businesses don’t think this way. Marketing is something they do if there’s money left over, but the best brands don’t treat it as optional. Visa and Mastercard aren’t spending billions because they need to be known. They do it so no one else can rise.

That’s the difference between playing to grow and playing to win.