I just happened to have my TV turned to the Cooking Channel (which is part of the Food Network) and saw a commercial for payments platform Square. This appears to be the first big commercial ad push for Square on TV. I’ve contacted Square for confirmation.
The commercial was pretty straightforward and featured a number of merchants that all use Square to accept credit card payments, including a hairstylist, tailor and mechanic. The commercial showed the merchants actually swiping cards from customers, e-signatures on the app, and mentioned that Square can be used on Android and iPhones.
It isn’t particularly surprising that Square is spending more dollars on marketing as it looks to expand merchant use. And the company now has competition from PayPal’s new mobile credit card reader and payments platform, PayPal Here.
Last year, Square put up a massive Times Square billboard in New York City, but this was paid for by a generous supporter, the company said at the time. It’s unclear if that was the case with this new ad campaign; however, Square certainly has the cash for a TV ad blitz after raising $100 million in new funding last year.
We’ll update this post with Square’s response and a video of the commercial, if we can find one.