Amex Partners with Layar in New Interactive Small Business Strategy
In what appears to be a new direct marketing strategy, American Express® Open has recently taken a very real-life, interactive approach to marketing its Business Gold Rewards Card. This new strategy features real-life small business owners (SBOs), who are Business Gold Rewards cardmembers, and stories of how the card helped to build and sustain their businesses. In addition, it introduces a new interactive layer to direct mail that we haven’t yet seen from the “direct mail king.”
Thanks to a new partnership with Layar, an app for downloading and viewing interactive print, Amex is able to bring flat images of real-life SBOs to life via the simple point, tap and scan features of a mobile device. Using an interactive tool to communicate real-life SBO stories and experiences with the Business Gold Rewards Card, Amex is doing more than telling SBOs how the card can improve their businesses… it’s actually showing them.
An intimate look at real-life small business owners
These are just some of the names and businesses featured in Amex’s latest direct mail campaign:
“Diana Schweiger, Schweiger Vineyards, member since 2000.”
“Kenny Feldman, Feldman Lumber, member since 1972.”
“Raul Gutierrez, Tinybop, member since 1987.”
Unlike most direct mail campaigns that feature nameless images of models posing as SBOs or cardmembers, Amex is getting real with its audience, putting faces to names and turning real-life SBOs into brand ambassadors for the card.
The campaign paints a clear and very tangible picture of how the Amex Business Gold Rewards Card has supported each SBO and helped it grow – some for over 40 years. The campaign’s direct mail creative highlights stories behind a business’s “first dollar” and details how the Business Gold Rewards Card helped turn that dollar into many more.
Here are a couple of excerpts:
Schweiger Vineyards, Diana Schweiger, Member Since 2000
With their Business Gold Rewards Card, they [Diana and her family] were able to earn Membership Rewards points on shipping. Diana was able to redeem those points towards airfare and travel so that she could share Schweiger Vineyards’ wines all over the country. The card became the business partner that helped bring their extended family closer together.
Tinybop, Inc., Raul Gutierrez, Member Since 1987
The Business Gold Rewards Card not only helped him [Raul] with the purchases he needed to make, but also issued Additional Cards for his employees to make purchases with, so that he could delegate day-to-day purchasing without sacrificing oversight of the company’s bottom line.
In aligning real-life SBOs with the card, Amex is truly making it personal, showing cardmembers that it’s not just “marketing talk” and that SBOs around the world really are benefiting from the card’s “business-sized purchasing power and fast rewards.” Amex is putting a face (or in this case, many faces) to the card name. This not only makes it relatable, but also positions the card as the practical and obvious choice for SBOs’ banking and business needs.
Download, tap and watch
Just how is Amex giving its audience an intimate view of these real-life SBOs? Through its new partnership with Layar, Amex is able to offer their audience an interactive, personalized view of how the card has helped real SBOs, and real cardmembers, accelerate the things they wanted to do for their businesses.
Using the Layar app is easy and quick – simply download it, look for specially marked images on Amex direct mail, tap “scan” on the Layar home screen and watch as the cardmember stories come to life through videos on your mobile device. Amex describes these interactive capabilities as a “first-of-its-kind augmented reality experience.” Letters, envelopes and brochures in this latest Amex campaign all have the ability to come to life as interactive videos, providing the audience with visual content that is much more likely to resonate and leave a lasting impression. The stories are also readily shareable with others.
Amex is pushing the boundaries of direct mail with this new strategy, merging together traditional print with modern digital content to create a direct mail campaign that can be translated and shared across multiple platforms and channels. It is sure to make an impact. Not only is this an innovative and smart new strategy on the part of Amex, it is also perfectly targeted for a busy, on-the-go SBO audience that may not always have time to read mail. Turning print into digital gives SBOs the information they need quickly, in a visual and easily digestible manner, so they can, in Amex’s words, “get back to the things they really want to do for their business even faster.” (Also note the copy here: “Now you can see how the card works for businesses. And you don’t even have to open this envelope.”)
Extending the Amex OPEN brand
This very real-life, interactive direct mail campaign and strategy seems to be a direct extension of American Express’s OPEN Forum – where videos, stories of real-life SBOs, events with small business CEOs, open forums and more live together. The Amex partnership with an app like Layar merges print and digital as a way of appealing to an audience and offering an innovative and unique way to engage with the brand for content the target audience needs. It is also just another reason why American Express is a leader in direct marketing… and often the go-to card for small businesses. It further proves that the brand is keyed into and engaged with its target audiences, as well as the latest marketing trends, technologies and tactics. Amex elevates the brand successfully across multiple levels, channels and touch points in order to remain top of mind in the small business credit card game.
