The Task
American Express wanted to raise awareness of their Corporate Cards’ benefits and features; i.e. cash flow, rewards, reporting, Accessline and its renowned service levels in a series of online video ads.
Creative Approach
Our idea platform was creating ‘That’s smarter business.’ It’s based on the insight that being in business you’re obviously already smart. But by having an American Express Corporate Card, it helps take your business to the next level by using its features and rewards – making it a smarter way to do business.
Our idea: A tale of two businesses
We wanted to show the ‘have’ and ‘have not’ contrasts of using an American Express Corporate Card so we created our business twins - With & Without.
The ads needed to be a significant departure from the previous face-to-camera corporate testimonials and animated ‘explainer’ videos since these had very low viewing yields.
In each video, we show how the sharper ‘With’ business twin is running a smarter business, using his Card’s feature and benefits. It’s not that our ‘Without’ twin is dumb, he’s just a little behind the business eight ball.
We added subtle humour to give American Express a more relaxed style to appeal to a new and younger business audience. The edgy set design was minimalist to be industry/business agnostic, give a modern brand appeal and allow the viewer to focus on the key message.
By introducing a creative idea, so far the videos have achieved a 40% viewership increase compared to previous versions.
