American Express

OPEN Online Acquisition

My responsibilities included managing the Affiliate channel, Online Acquisition Advertising/Paid Media, Paid Search, Word of Mouth Marketing, and New Channel Development. The following are examples of creative/campaigns I developed.

OPEN Forum Blog

In partnership with Federated Media, I initiated and, through perserverence and a will to win, drove forward this project to develop the OPEN Forum Blog (now called OPEN Forum Idea Hub). The blog was a collaborative effort, with John Battelle, Anita Cambell, Guy Kawasaki, and Scott Belsky being some of the first author/bloggers/influencers to contribute to the site. This was, and continues to be, a huge success from a user engagement perspective, and it also was very effective in helping OPEN’s relevance in natural search results. In 2008, the OPEN Forum site and blog won the Golden MIXX Award (Marketing and Interactive Excellence Awards) for Brand Awareness & Positioning. Today, OPEN Forum has an audience of ~5MM visitors and ~10MM pageviews annually.
OPEN Forum Blog

JetBlue For Business Card Apply and Fly Campaign

I managed the creation and execution of a Word of Mouth Marketing campaign supporting the newly launched JetBlue For Business Card from American Express. For one week in October, 2006, 1 in 20 applicants for the JetBlue For Business Card received a free flight from JetBlue. In order to generate conversation, buzz, and anticipation for the program, we started promoting it a few weeks ahead of the giveaway week with banner advertisements on the OPEN.com site, targeted e-mail, Forward to a Friend Email functionality, and other “underground” marketing tactics.
JetBlue For Business Word of Mouth Campaign (7 Images)

Business Gold Rewards

The Business Gold Rewards Card is the flagship card of American Express OPEN. The following are some acquisition focused creative that I led, or strongly influenced. the development of (in partnership with internal partners and our agency). Its not the flashiest creative but remember that the focus of the communication was to drive response and acquisition.
Business Gold Rewards Card

During the summers of 2007 and 2008, the Acquisition department led a cross channel promotion focusing on the Business Gold Rewards Card. The incentive was a free airline ticket (via 25,000 Membership Rewards points) when a prospect applied and was approved for the BGR card. In 2007, the prospect was awarded the points at first spend on the card. In 2008, we adjusted the criteria to award the points after the prospect spends $1,000 on the card.
BGR “I Need” Expandable Video Banner
Business Gold Rewards “I Need” Banner
BGR “I Need” Video Banner

Multi Product Cash Flow Management Campaign

In late 2007 and early 2008, we developed what we called the “Cash Flow Management” campaign. In this initiative, I developed banners and landing pages that kept the same consistent theme throughout the customer experience and across card products. All the messaging focused on the subject of cash flow management and the landing page included a PDF document outlining how a Small Business Owner can effectively manage cash flow.
Cash Flow Management Campaign

Microsoft Office Live Partnership

Early in 2007, we had the opportunity to work with Microsoft and its Office Live product. The partnership program we agreed to was to offer a free 3 month subscription to Microsoft Office Live for those who had been approved for the Business Gold Rewards Card. For a variety of reasons, this project never was released, however we did get as far as to develop creative for the program, which I was very happy with because it did a good job of visually integrating the attributes of both the OPEN and Microsoft Office Live brand elements.
Microsoft Office Live Partnership

Multicard Expandible Banner

One approach I took was to create a multicard banner that would the enable the prospect to compare several of our cards within the interface of an expandible banner. In this unit, we featured the SmiplyCash Business Card, the Business Gold Rewards Card, the Business Platinum Card and the Delta Business Card. In addition to being able to compare the cards, the user could also provide their email address so we could send them a reminder email to themselves. The banner was effective because we were able to capture over 300 email addresses, and the users interacted with the banner from 20-60 seconds. The unit also was effective in driving Card conversions.
Multicard Banner

SimplyCash Business Card Banners

The SimplyCash Business Card was introduced in the Fall of 2007. At the time of launch, the value proposition of the card offerd 5% off of Gas, Wireless, and Office Supplies, and 1% off of almost all other spend. To drive acquisition of this product, we developed a set of banners that I am most proud of in that they do a very clear and effective job of deomnstrating the value proposition. These banners were some of the most effective we had in market.
SimplyCash Banners

Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card Banners

The Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card was introduced in the Fall of 2007. The big challenge with this card was the balance we had to strike between the visual imagery of the Starwood properties with the branded elements of American Express OPEN.
Starwood Banners

OPEN Savings Partnership with Yahoo!

When Yahoo! was part of the OPEN Savings program, I developed some media banners to promote the relationship and the 5% discount that OPEN customers would earn when they used their American Express OPEN card to buy Yahoo! Search keywords, Site hosting and other Yahoo! online marketing services
Yahoo! Banner