Amex EveryDay: Direct Mail Piece Now Hitting the Mailbox
Amex EveryDay (sm) credit card has been on our radar: starting with the noteworthy launch via the Academy Award TV buy and Facebook “sneak peeks” all featuring Tina Fey all the way through the Everyday Getaway social promotion, a print campaign and occasional e-mail solicitations.
Now, mailbox activity is being captured by Competiscan, while a live Amex Everyday direct mail solicitation is being passed around the team. The package itself is resplendent with Amex quality of effort, and, since mail is mail and advertising is advertising, there’s no incorporation of the Tina Fey ad riffs (no handwritten lists, sense of humor, celebrity endorsement, etc.). The overall positioning, however, stays true: rewards for how often you shop versus how much you spend.
The direct mail package is based on best practices effectively rendered in a contemporary way:
- It’s closed face and sized to attract mail box share of attention.
- Practicing the art of sacrifice and refusing to “lard up” the package with every perk and benefit, Amex promotes only the key benefits: no annual fee, 20 percent membership rewards earn, core value proposition, 0% introductory APR.
- The word “new” is strategically deployed: “The new Amex EveryDay Credit Card” and “Presenting a New Every Day,” for example.
- Materials take advantage of Amex cachet: “Designed by American Express.”
- The activation/spend offer is unique to mail: “Earn 25k points towards $250 in merchant gift cards.”
- The letter and brochure expand upon “everyday earn,” detailing 2x and 1x earn opportunities.
- The brochure is well-crafted with simple copy points, plenty of room to breathe, high contrast, contemporary images (smoothies and a mobile app, for instance) and timely promotion of “Fraud Protection Guarantee.”
- The brochure cover showcases a faux plastic clear card (“A New EveryDay. Designed by American Express”) prominently centered on the cover.
Here are a few observations as the first mail wave reaches consumers (caveat: data comes from early direct mail activity reported by the Competiscan sample and, therefore, is not representative of a mail strategy):
- Recipients cross a spectrum of age brackets, excluding 30-39 year olds (a segment we expected to see based on industry buzz and Competiscan’s current small sample of e-mail recipients).
- Recipient income broadly spans $25k to $150k.
- Recipients are both female and male.
We’ll bring you more reliable data driven insights as the mail campaigns get fully established.
Competiscan is a full-service, competitive intelligence market research firm. It enables clients to study marketing and loyalty strategies by industry, company, product or recipient demographic. Media channels tracked include direct mail, email, online display, social media and print. Competiscan clients utilize our web-based search facility to understand what consumers, business owners, financial advisors and insurance producers are viewing in the marketplace.
