Turning financial brand promise into culture, content, and commerce
CONSUMER
Led the global repositioning of American Express around "The Powerful Backing of American Express" and "Don't Live Life Without It," a platform that moved the brand from transactional to human. We partnered with creators and cultural figures whose stories reflected what the brand stood for, showing up in younger, more emotionally resonant ways and reframing Amex as a brand that backs people, not just purchases. The Lin-Manuel Miranda campaign alone contributed to a 26% profit lift and 1.6 Billion impressions.
Lin-Manuel Miranda
One of the few creators with genuine multicultural, global reach, and the centerpiece of the consumer relaunch. I wrote the films, then sat down with Lin-Manuel directly to build the integrated campaign together: broadcast, social, and live experiences rooted in him and his community. It became one of the most-loved things the brand made.
Pharrell Williams
A creator with near-universal reach. Through the Unstaged concert series, we turned his live performances into livestreamed, exclusive-access experiences for cardmembers, then extended the partnership into music and lifestyle content. Backing culture, made tangible.
B2B
Redefined American Express's B2B voice with "Don't Do Business Without It," proving B2B creative can resonate as deeply as B2C. The "Shop Small" content series became a cultural and commercial phenomenon: Small Business Saturday drove 104 million shoppers and $17.8 billion in single-day sales, the highest on record, connecting Amex with a new generation of business owners.
We also created proximity campaigns - geolocating ads on digital billboards (ie.taxi tops) to help businesses near by during the campaign. The ads would change depending on which businesses were nearby in proximity.
We placed the content to meet people in the places where life and business intersect, across mobile channels, in more than 20 different podcasts, within file-sharing tool WeTransfer and other business tool sites.
