Discover × MTA — Tap to Ride
Date
2024
Role
Campaign · Visual · Strategy
Team
Card Payments + Marketing
Overview
Discover wanted to increase everyday use of contactless payments across NYC transit and beyond. Tap-to-pay was already available through cards, phones, and wearables, but adoption was still relatively low. New Yorkers move quickly and transit payment is largely automatic. The challenge was to interrupt an ingrained behavior without adding complexity. The campaign needed to make tapping immediately recognizable, communicate the benefit in seconds, and work in an environment where people were already in motion.
Approach
Rather than trying to explain contactless payment in detail, we built the campaign around one simple behavior: tap. The visual system used minimal language, hand-and-device photography, and concentric contactless rings to make the gesture instantly understandable. That became a modular “Tap to…” system that could scale across different placements, messages, and commuter moments while still feeling like one campaign.
Results
During the campaign period, contactless transactions across the MTA increased 20% YTD, while the campaign reached more than 4 million commuters and achieved 80%+ ad recall.
The most effective interface was the environment itself.
We brought the behavior directly into the moment it mattered — the station, the turnstile, and the commute itself.
The campaign expanded across 300+ digital and print assets
20% increase in contactless transactions across the MTA YTD in 2024.
