Category: Best Consumer Engagement
Advertiser: AMERICAN EXPRESS
Product/Service: AMERICAN EXPRESS
Agency: DIGITAS
Media Agency: MINDSHARE, New York, USA
: Louis Paskalis (AMEX)
: Rachel Chan (AMEX)
: Katie Washington (AMEX)
: Melissa Golub (AMEX)
: Cindy Kraft (AMEX)
: Malick Cisse (AMEX)
: Chris Kindt (DTAS)
: Wade Rifkin (DTAS)
: Kyle Hufnal (DTAS)
: Kathy Medina (DTAS)
: Divya Bahl (DTAS)
: Mary Snauffer (DTAS)
: Noah Mallin (DTAS)
: Alex Jacobs (DTAS)
: Mark Kiernan (DTAS)
: Roger Box (DTAS)
: Seth Spielvogel (Mindshare)
: Rob Rakowitz (Mindshare)
Media placement: Homepage Portrait Unit - Huffingtonpost.com - 26 Nov 2011
Media placement: Supertab Takeover - imdb.com - 26 Nov 2011
Media placement: Homepage Takeover - nytimes.com - 26 Nov 2011
Insights, Strategy & the Idea
The objective of the SBS (Small Business Saturday) campaign was to promote mass awareness of the holiday, and drive consumers to participate by shopping locally. The target audience was 18+ consumers, regardless of their status as AMEX card members or non-card members. In order to maximise awareness, AMEX deployed a multi-platform media approach that incorporated elements of social, mobile, video, tablet and high-impact OLA media. Each element provided consumers with specific ways to engage in and join the movement, such as tweeting where they planned to shop small, providing them locally-relevant shopping options, or allowing them to set up calendar reminders on their iPhones. The audience was highly receptive and supportive toward the idea of supporting their community, and this positioned AMEX as the champion of the ‘shop small’ movement in the eyes of the public.
Creative Execution
Each media channel utilised creative elements that allowed users to engage with the campaign in unique ways, but all creative was developed with the notion of driving awareness and participation.
RM mobile ads allowed users to set iCalendar reminders to help them remember to shop on the day, and provided them with local shopping options based on their exact location. To increase appeal, RM banner executions incorporated celebrity tweets (ex, Jessica Alba, Serena Williams) allowing users to tweet / reply directly through the banner to their social network. These banners were placed on prominent homepages and portals on the holiday to maximize exposure, which ran in tandem with Facebook target blocks and Twitter promoted trends. News publications like Ganette and AOL Patch combined national reach with local scale; AMEX worked with these partners to build out media experiences for consumers that incorporated local shopping options and information about the holiday.
Results and Effectiveness
Through the combination of awareness and engagement focused social media, the SBS campaign achieved a 65% general US population awareness (AMEX GNPI research). The SBS Facebook page garnered over 2.7MM likes, and the volume of buzz resulted in the official SBS hash tag trending organically 3x on the holiday. The campaign received nearly 195K tweets using one of multiple SBS hash tags.
The support for the campaign became so pervasive, even the most prominent public figures, including President Obama, voiced their support on Twitter. In addition, Congress passed legislature in 2011, declaring Small Business Saturday a national holiday.