Why do MasterCard advertise? Their adverts cover approximately half of Euro 2008, which presumably costs them a whole load of money (which I assume is to be paid back by cripplingly high monthly instalments), but I just cannot understand why it is in their interests for them to do so.

Is there a single case of somebody having chosen one credit card over another based on it being a MasterCard rather than a Visa? And is there even one thing you can do with a MasterCard that cannot be done with another card? They all seem to be exactly as good as each other at allowing people to live way beyond their means, so is there any reason to try and instil brand loyalty in members of the general public? I would have thought the best thing for them to do is to convince banks and other financial services that they are better for them than Visa, but I can’t see why anybody else could possibly care about their brand of credit card whatsoever.

If anyone knows why I’m wrong, please feel free to put me out of my misery.