American Express Brand Refresh: An injection of emotion for a changing world.
Amex’s global campaign, ‘Realize the Potential’ had been running successfully for the best part of a decade. But in that time the world of finance had changed around it. We used a series of proprietary tools to create a fresh new identity for the campaign, allowing it to compete more effectively, attract new audiences and smash performance targets.
Rediscovering the magic of American Express.
The Change
American Express’s global campaign ‘Realize the Potential’ had been running successfully for the best part of a decade – a long time in the world of personal finance. Everything from technology, attitudes to finance and new competitors has vastly changed. It was time to evolve the positioning.
The Opportunity
Visual Planning techniques were used to understand the new brand landscape, add much needed emotion, and identify the unique experience that lay at the heart of being an American Express member.
We used out neuroscience rule of thumb to audit the competitor’s communications, identify emerging trends and spot opportunities. Bringing these together, ‘Realize the Potential 2.0’ was born. We step changed the brand platform identity and created a new design system that stretched the brand across its many products, services and audiences.
The Result
The new brand platform was rolled out to 160 markets and executed across over 3000 assets. It replaced more than 20 sets of brand guidelines into a single coherent set.
Asset take up has increased by 148% year on year and achieved cost efficiencies of 193%. The new platform has been seen by over 170 million people across multiple campaigns breaking effectiveness records and increasing acquisition rates.
The team clocked up over 85,000 miles, travelling from Toronto to Tokyo, training over 1,300 marketeers in 80 different markets.
