Brand Experience and Activation > Use of Media

MEMBERS PROJECT

DIGITAS, New York / AMERICAN EXPRESS / 2009

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Overview

Credits

OVERVIEW

ClientBriefOrObjective

The core objective was to build on the success of Members Project (MP) ‘07 and activate the Cardmember community and make Membership feel less like joining an elitist club and more like an invitation to participate in an inspirational and passionate community. We wanted deep engagement with a high-value target that would:• Recast perceptions of who belongs to the Cardmember community among prospects and American Express detractors.• Create a greater sense of community among Cardmembers exposed to the campaign.• Maximize the engagement levels of those participating at every level of the program.

Implementation

To break through to consumers, we couldn’t just talk about the power of Membership. We had to demonstrate it. We created tools and a forum for Cardmembers to share their interests and passions. But it wasn’t enough to just start another online community, we empowered Cardmembers and prospects to achieve something tangible. Social awareness and “doing good” were core affinities for both existing Cardmembers and our target. Therein was a provocative idea: enable Cardmembers to dream up, and ultimately unite behind, incredible ideas. Something good for the world. American Express would bring the ideas to life with $2.5 Million.

Outcome

The social & promotional elements of the communications strategy increased organic visitation to MembersProject.com over 500% from previous years. Expanding participation beyond the previous ‘Cardmember only’ stipulation in ’07 to non-Cardmembers proved extremely successful and set new standards for engagement with over half of all visitors performing high-value actions (views,nominations,votes,clicks-to-apply) on MembersProject.com.

Syndicated “buzz” research showed Members Project outpaced all other American Express media activity for digital PR for 2008. Participants were more than 5x as likely to socially promote the program compared to previous American Express efforts that did not contain an appeal to the collective power of Membership.

Relevancy

MP ’08 leveraged burgeoning social networks and capitalized on the passions of participating Cardmembers by giving them the self-promotional tools to get the word out themselves. High-impact paid placements drove Cardmembers to submit project ideas and utilize a vast array of customized tools (facebook, project widgets,HTML emails,Instant Messaging techniques,video) to rally support for their projects. When the voting phase began, visitation to the Members Project was driven by project owners promoting their entries and buoyed by Paid Media tied to milestone voting dates. Non-traditional,it was about allowing real Cardmember conversations to fuel the promotion and revitalize the idea of Membership.

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