The Brief

The American Express Cathay Pacific Credit Card was a success. After all, it offers a faster Asia Miles earn rate – fast enough to easily earn you a trip to Sydney in the first 3 months alone! However, many Asia Miles Members haven’t signed up – even though they love travelling. The insight: they receive so many offers that shout “earn more Asia Miles” that they have become immune to large numbers. It’s a condition we named, “The Fear of All Sums”. To them, large numbers have become meaningless. We had to present our offer in a way that’s more tangible.

Creative Execution

The Card is designed for those who have a passion for travel. Therefore, the DM was created to appeal to the traveller’s psyche. To stand out from the competition, which usually uses pretty pictures and charts with large numbers of Miles, we used the classic DM concept of “verisimilitude”, defined as the “appearance of being true in order to suspend the audience’s disbelief”. In other words, our DM took our travel-loving audience through a fantastical travel story in which they are the heroes – giving them a taste of the Card’s benefits.

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

We all know that testimonials are effective. Now imagine one from yourself – written 1 year in the future, while enjoying a vacation using the Miles you earned. We sent out a handwritten letter – with a REAL stamp and sent from Australia. It comes from “You… 1 year from now”… telling you that the sooner you apply, the sooner you’ll be enjoying this vacation. There was an offer for enough Miles to fly to Australia, broken down to illustrate how easy it is to earn Miles. This ensured the DM would be opened. Plus, it made the offer tangible.

Results

This DM pack proved to be a success. In the first 2 weeks alone, the number of responses was already more than twice that of all previous packs aimed at the same target audience. At the time of this writing, responses continue to pour in. Respondents were also all high-valued elite Marco Polo Members (i.e. Cathay Pacific Airways’ high-tiered frequent flyer members). Anecdotally, many applicants who called to apply stated that they were impressed with the idea, as well as the way it dramatised the offer.