Mastercard Touch
Mastercard Touch is a tactile accessibility feature the brand designed for all cards issued by partner banks and financial institutions.
An award winning design in it’s own right, the clever feature helps visually impaired users differentiate cards by touch using unique notches: round for debit, squared for credit, and triangular for prepaid.
Banks hesitate to promote Mastercard Touch Card, fearing low adoption, unclear ROI, and messaging complexity, limiting accessibility awareness and reducing Mastercard’s capacity to differentiate based on inclusivity.
Our brief was to create an idea that would promote inclusive design, accessibility, respect blind and low vision audiences, position Mastercard as an inclusive payment leader, and critically; An idea Westpac couldn’t say no to.
TOUCH is a feature-length motion picture without pictures, created with, by and for the BLV community. Westpac bought in immediately, donating their sponsorship property OpenAir cinema for the world premiere.
What followed was one of the most insane production processes I’ve ever seen, involving collaborations from Hollywood to Berlin and Mongolia - yes, Mongolia.
The result was about as close as advertising gets to art; innovative, risky, highly crafted, intensely personal, challenging and full of heart.
Watching the premiere, on the shores of Sydney Harbour, surrounded by thousands of blind and low vision people, colleagues and clients, was quite the memorable highlight.
Creative by Gavin Chimes, Scott Zuliani and Jared Wicker
Production Holly Alexander
Howatson+Company, created a cinema experience designed for blind audiences, using immersive sound and storytelling instead of visuals. This purpose-led, earned media idea sparked conversation on accessibility, positioning Mastercard as an inclusion leader while generating widespread coverage and cultural impact beyond traditional advertising.
More than 500 million people visit the cinema every year. Yet the experience for those who are blind or have low vision is always an afterthought. To promote Mastercard’s accessible Touch Card™, we flipped the script and created a cinema experience that put them first.
Developed with award-winning director Tony Krawitz and Oscar-nominated sound mixer Wayne Pashley – in collaboration with composers, writers and actors from the blind and low vision community at every stage of the production process. The shared ambition was to redefine what the cinematic experience could be without pictures orienting the storyline.
The film premiered at Sydney’s iconic OpenAir Cinema and will be shown in theatres and festivals across the world.
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