AmEx is touting Sync -- a service that translates social-media activity
into savings for cardholders -- in TV commercials featuring comedian
Aziz Ansari. The spots highlight the "Link Like Love" feature on
Facebook, which offers discounts based on what users of the network
like.
The TV blitz followed Sync's high-profile debut at the South by
Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, this past March. While
the event has catapulted such startups as Twitter and Foursquare into
popularity, some argue that AmEx stole the show this year when it
introduced Sync paperless coupons, which are loaded onto credit cards
when cardholders tweet certain hashtags.
AmEx's first foray into this kind of social-media tool was a partnership
with Foursquare that let cardholders sync accounts to the mobile app to
save money at Austin-area businesses when they checked in during the
2011 SXSW. AmEx then opened the Foursquare program to small businesses
in other markets to help attract new customers with location-based
offers.
Social media is also a cornerstone in AmEx's Small Business Saturday,
the 2-year-old event that encourages people to shop at local businesses
on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. And shop they do, thanks in part to
AmEx's marketing clout. The company spent more than $2.2 billion on
advertising in 2010, according to the Ad Age DataCenter.
Ad Age: Why has social media been so central to AmEx's marketing recently?
Mr. Hayes: Social platforms do so much more than
communicate. If you go back through our marketing over the last couple
of decades, we've built a lot of things that create experiences for
people. Our belief is that marketing really needs to be more than just
communication. With Twitter, it was about an experience: syncing your
card, tweeting and saving money. On Facebook, "Link Like Love" is about
experiences based on your "likes." Read the rest here
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