MASTERCARD HOLIDAY MARKETING IN OVERDRIVE.

MasterCard Worldwide is proving to be an especially aggressive marketer this holiday season, launching three programs in November. MasterCard began Nov. 1 its Home for the Holidays sweepstakes with a grand prize of $350,000 towards a home purchase. Consumer and small business cardholders are automatically entered with a U.S.-based purchase, or can enter online at the priceless.com Web site. MasterCard also added a daily instant-win game to the site to draw in cardholders, noting that game players typically return to Web sites five to seven times. MasterCard says the 214 issuers participating in the sweepstakes will deliver more than 83 million impressions to cardholders through …