Dear credit card companies. You all have an ethical responsibility towards your customers. This is the time for trying something else than the usual spend-it-all-like-its-no-tomorrow-and-pay-later communication.

The economical and financial challenges we are facing today, gives us a great opportunity to come up with more appropriate ways to communicate with our customers. People of today are aware consumers and should be considered receivers, not a target group. A firm also has an ethical responsibility towards their buyers, and should therefore use their resources to give them something, rather than to spend all the money on one-way-communication.

To promote a credit card, is therefore an interesting task. Is it to be done in an untraditional way? Such cards are often associated with unwisely spent money. When our insight tells us that our money is safest when they are placed in our accounts, there might be a good idea to build the communication around this value.

Everything starts with a U-turn. All money is spent on untraditional advertising.
The marketing budget is spent, to improve AmEx services and expand the customer’s advantages.
By giving the client more than just a plastic card, we are allowed to build the brand to be something more.
This is about giving something back to the receiver.

Idea:
Bringing unapproachable products and services to the Amex customer.
(Art, merchandise and events)

AmEx Travelling Market Fare

Mobile stands are placed in parks and public spaces, to create a market.
These will pop up around the world, in limited period of time. A selection of products is to be exposed, and make it more available for people. The market has the spirit of the old fashioned markets, but in a modernized way.

AmEx Magazine

Twice a year, a lifestyle magazine is distributed to the Amex customers.
People will also be able to buy it, in selected kiosks. In that way, we will be able to reach out to non-customers. Every issue have the touch of different artists, and is like a show window for the AmEx way of living.

The Amex Store

Several stores are opened around in the biggest cities in the world. (London, New York, Tokyo, Milan…) It all starts with one store, exposing a few, high-quality products and will be in strong contrast to the mass productive chains. The selection contains a sortie of handmade and inaccessible products, from all over the world.

Highly profiled contemporary artists will decorate the stores, so that their expressions will be under constant change.

The most important thing about the stores is not to sell products. It’s to build another scale of associations towards the AmEx brand. The visitors of the store are not supposed to feel the pressure of buying something, but to get a hint of what quality products the world has to offer. The knowledge and service of the ones to work in these stores are to be exquisite.