THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 16, 1994 TAG: 9407160213
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
NationsBank Corp., whose card-processing operations in Norfolk employ more than 1,300 people, has teamed up with magazine publisher Southern Progress Corp. to offer a Southern Living Visa card.
The credit card will provide users with discounts on magazine subscriptions, books, house plans and certain travel services offered by Birmingham, Ala.-based Southern Progress.
The Southern Living-NationsBank partnership will generate jobs at the banking company's card-processing facility in Norfolk, said William L. Glascock, senior vice president at NationsBank Card Services for partner marketing and commercial products. However, it is too early to predict how many jobs will be created, he said.
The interest rate charged for balances on the Southern Living-NationsBank card will start at 6.5 percent for the first six billing cycles, then jump to the prime lending rate plus 9.9 percent.
With the prime now at 7.25 percent, the rate would rise to 17.15 percent.
Individuals who qualify for the new card will pay no annual fee if they use it at least once a year.
Greg Battistello, marketing director for Southern Progress's magazine division, said the company will initially offer its Visa card to Southern Living's 2.5 million subscribers. Sometime later, the company will solicit applicants with promotions in newsstand copies of Southern Living, he said.
Southern Progress spent two years preparing for its card program and talking with a half-dozen banks, Battistello said. The company chose Charlotte-based NationsBank partly because of the size of its card operations, he said. In addition, ``their prime territory just about overlaps our territory,'' Battistello said.
Southern Living concentrates on architecture, home improvement, cooking and travel in the Southeast.
VISA's principal rival, MasterCard, has been much more aggressive at offering ``co-branded'' programs, which reward card users with such things as airline miles or rebates on the purchases of automobiles. But Southern Progress decided to use Visa because the name has much broader recognition in the travel-services industry, Battistello said.
The Southern Living card is the fourth co-branded card that NationsBank has launched. These partnerships are sought by card issuers like NationsBank because co-sponsors like Southern Progress typically share the cost of marketing their cards, Glascock said.
In addition, cardholders tend to use co-branded cards more frequently, which generates additional revenue for the banks that issue the cards, he said.
Southern Living readers were particularly attractive, Glascock said, because they tend to have above-average levels of disposable income and are very loyal to the magazine and its products. by CNB