The Campaign

Instead of dirt-fighting with the mass brands, we identified the Blue Ocean. A niche segment of Young Business Professionals with annual income USD130,000+ who live luxury lifestyle. 76% of this audience are willing to pay more for QUALITY, things beyond monetary value but exclusive & exceptional experience. American Express Platinum Card provides various exclusive access to travel, dining and shopping plus 24 hours concierge services which simply money can’t buy experience become a perfect fit. Yet we took 1 step further. We unveil that although these elites look similar, at heart they are obsessed to stand out from peers, with 59% of them prefer being leaders than followers, making themselves Early Adopters on exclusive experience and shine well ahead of others. The Big idea is to create an ultimate desire of the Platinum Style: empower the elites to upgrade their social pride by earning an American Express Platinum card.

Creative Execution

Social Sharing or “show-off” from Platinum Cardmembers about their Centurion Lounge experience started to create curiosity amongst their peers. We raised it further, by placing massive poster and digital panel nearby a pathway to our Lounge, so we remind them about their “limited access” to live without a Platinum Card during their travel journey. To capitalize their eagerness more, viral videos from young local elites sharing their own Platinum experience were spread to hint the unique social status of the Plat Cardmembers were enjoying now. We kept reminding our audience of various tangible benefits, by following their digital footprints: • They discovered Reward Points benefits in spending smart moment when they visited finance product portals like Moneyhero • Platinum lifestyle benefit seamlessly embedded in Luxury Lifestyle environment • Worldwide Centurion Lounges access when they traveled abroad An irresistible personalized invitation through Linkedin to wrap up the acquisition phase.

The original target is a Y-O-Y growth of membership by 50%; we exceeded well above and hit a record of 210% in just 3 months’ time: More than half of the new acquisitions were done through online applications which we directly tracked on paid digital media channels with clear ROI on every dollars spent. Since new members were charged a membership fee of USD1,000, the campaign itself was indeed a self-financed one where our cost-per-acquisition was in fact way below the membership fee received. Google Trends data recorded the search interest had an average uplift of 61% after the marketing campaign launched. Thousands of sharing on the Metallic Platinum Card and Centurion Lounge experience became a hot social currency in the elite circle. This is now a case and model shared across American Express offices to learn and adapt, American Express Hong Kong score it once again with Platinum Experience

Hong Kong is an extremely competitive market for credit card flooded with “Welcome Offer” plus annual fee waiver. Card even named as “Gold” was just a payment service for FREE. American Express challenged the market to launch The Platinum Card®, charging US$1,000 membership fee for unparalleled experience. We achieved business goal of acquiring members through perfect integration of art and science in media. With consumer data and research we uncovered unique social-graphic and media- insight, helped us precisely-planned and articulated Platinum Lifestyle that trigger real response. The campaign achieved record-breaking number of acquisition with well tracked and attributed media ROI.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Elite Early Adopters tend to be VIPs to different happenings and events in town or be the 1st to taste the new Chef Menus in town. What we could offer similarly? Despite the absence of retail banking presence, American Express identified one single spot where no other Credit Cards have presence: The 1st American Express Centurion Lounge in Asia at HK International Airport, such exclusive access of The Platinum Cardmembers hooked on their elite peers’ desire and social pride. The strategy is to articulate and amplify target’s social desire along a media journey • Creating buzz via group of Early Adopters sharing the Centurion Lounge experience • Top Elites and leading luxury lifestyle media in town talks about it • Audience are further engaged when they learned more about our Platinum Card exclusive benefits in targeted touch points • Triggering audience to apply in order not to be “lagged behind”