Category: Best Integrated Campaign Led by Promotion and Activation
Advertiser: AMERICAN EXPRESS
Product/Service: AMERICAN EXPRESS
Agency: CRISPIN PORTER + BOGUSKY
Agency: DIGITAS
EVP Creative Director: Matt D’Ercole (Digitas)
Interactive Creative Director: Dan Ligon (CP+B)
Creative Director: Allen Richardson/Tom Miller/Lewis McVey/Michael Tagle/Darci Manley (CP+B and Digitas)
Associate Creative Director: Jens McNaughton/Jesse Suchmann/Jenny Awasano (CP+B and Digitas)
Director/Cognitive Anthropology: Kaylin Goldstein/Andrew Teagle (CP+B)
SVP Marketing: Mark Kiernan (Digitas)
VP Director, Marketing: Roger Box (Digitas)
Associate Director, Marketing: Alex Jacobs (Digitas)
VP Group Director, Media: Chris Kindt (Digitas)
VP Director, Media: Wade Rifkin (Digitas)
Managing Director: Robert Rakowitz (MindShare)
Associate Media Director: Seth Spievogel (MindShare)
Media Manager: Leela Ramdeen (MindShare)
Chief Creative Officer: Lincoln Bjorkman/Rob Reilly/Jeff Benjamin (Digitas & CP+B)
SVP Creative Director: Atit Shah (Digitas)
Executive Creative Director: Mark Taylor (CP+B)
Art Director: Mike Blanch/Laura Potsic/Daniel Burke/Josh Gross/Rochelle Rais/Kim Baskinger/Miao Wang/Kristen Giuliano/Allyson Paisley (CP+B and Digitas)
Copywriter: Adrian Alexander/Kelly McCormick/Kimberly Samskin-Barger/Adrian Dickerson/Ashley Berndt (CP+B and Digitas)
SVP: Matt Hantz (M Booth)
Principal: Shaunn D’Alessandro (AIFOS)
Media placement: TV - Cable and local stations nationwide - November 2011
Media placement: Print - Newspapers nationwide - November 2011
Media placement: Banners - AOL, Google, MSN, ClearChannel - November 2011
Media placement: OOH - Sports Stadiums nationwide - November 2011
Media placement: Social Media - Facebook and Twitter - October-November 2011
Media placement: Gift Cards - Corporate Partners distributed - November 2011
Describe the objective of the promotion.
In 2010, American Express created Small Business Saturday, a new shopping day right after Black Friday, to help small businesses get what they needed most: more customers.
The challenge in 2011 was to cement its place as an official shopping day in the US, and drive solid business outcomes to America’s independent, brick-and-mortar retailers.
American Express built a marketing campaign that communicated the importance of small businesses while driving home a call to action for consumers and small businesses at the local level.
Consumers were asked to shop, and small businesses were provided with the tools they needed to get the word out to their customers.
Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation.
In 2010, the campaign was focused on consumers, encouraging them to shop at a small business. The target in 2011 would expand to also include small businesses, rallying them to step up and own the day. American Express armed them with a toolkit, loaded with everything they’d need to get the word out, from POP—like a Shop Small badge and posters—to social marketing tools like a Facebook business-page builder and YouTube video maker.
American Express also enlisted partner corporations and groups, including FedEx, Google, Facebook, ClearChannel, and more, to help spread the word and drive support for the day.
Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service.
American Express has been offering small business credit cards and services for over 20 years. And we’re single-mindedly committed to helping small businesses succeed. It’s the American Express OPEN mission: helping businesses do more business.
But to truly help small businesses be successful, we needed to address their most pressing challenge: getting customers.
American Express created Small Business Saturday with the objective of driving traffic and sales to small businesses across America. Building upon the tremendous success of 2010, American Express set out in 2011 to make Small Business Saturday a permanent fixture of the holiday season.
Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results.
Small Business Saturday struck a chord with consumers, small business owners, and policy makers in a way that few could have predicted. Over 500,000 small business owners leveraged the online tools and promotional materials. Hundreds of thousands of consumers registered to receive a $25 statement credit for shopping at a small business on the day, and Cardmember transactions on the day rose by 23%.
In the end, 103m Americans shopped small, including President Obama. The US Senate even declared Small Business Saturday an official day. In just its second year, it had become a permanent fixture on the holiday shopping calendar.