Advertising Case Study

American Express
Company Background
American Express is a global service company that provides customers with access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. American Express OPEN is dedicated to helping small business owners run and grow successful businesses.

Facebook Executive Summary

Client:

facebook.com/SmallBusinessSaturday

Campaign Objective
As a company, American Express is always looking for ways to help small businesses. In fact, OPENs mission is Helping Businesses Do More Business. From that mission, grew the idea for Small Business Saturday, a day when Americans would be encouraged to patronize their local businesses. Within AmEx, the idea quickly took on a life of its own. We recognized the downturn had a big impact on a number of small businesses and that what they needed most was customers, says John Hayes, Chief Marketing Officer at American Express. When this idea came about, everyone said lets just do it. American Express set out to create Small Business Saturday, a movement encouraging consumers to shop at small businesses on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, between Black Friday and Cyber Mondaytwo of the countrys biggest annual shopping days. Susan Sobbott, President of American Express OPEN, explains, Small Business Saturday is a manifestation of tremendous energy around rallying American consumers to shop at their local stores and help businesses do more business The campaign had three main goals: American Express wanted to help

Objective: Create a national movement to drive business to small businesses called Small Business Saturday Solution: A multi-layer ecosystem of passionate Americans, support from government officials, reasons to shop at local small businesses, and the Facebook community at the heart of it all Key Lessons: With a good idea and simple execution, people can be mobilized extremely quickly on Facebook The reach of Facebook is a powerful way for brands to pursue a common goal with their customers

Not only were we able to get a fan base of a million and a half people on Facebook supporting Small Business Saturday, but when you think about their friends, were talking about over 100 million people being aware of Small Business Saturday. We dont know any other way that we could have scaled that level of awareness and that level of engagement in less than two and a half weeks.
John Hayes
Chief Marketing Officer, American Express

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small businesses by bringing consumers into their stores, unite U.S. consumers around a cause they care about, and strengthen American Express relationship with small businesses and consumers. American Express had an initial objective of getting at least 1 million fans to join the movement on Facebook.

The Small Business Saturday Page became the destination for all of AmExs marketing efforts and the community hub for those supporting the movement. It also quickly became the fastest growing Page on Facebook. The companys activities on Facebook were complemented by a cross-media campaign. We created a business system around Small Business Saturday, of which Facebook was the beating heart, says Susan. We had a PR strategy, advertising strategy, partnership strategy and public official strategy that was built around it. There was a virtuous cycle between all pieces of the equation. To achieve a movement of this scale, American Express needed a simple call to action and clear incentives for all participants. Consumers who used their AmEx card at a small business on the Saturday after Thanksgiving received a $25 credit, when they spent $25. American Express provided 10,000 businesses free advertising on Facebook and offered them in-store materials to promote the event to their customers. Many of them had never advertised on Facebook before, and we inspired them to use a new medium, says Susan. Many are continuing to do that now that theyve experienced Facebook.

Campaign Approach
As John explains, The first place we all agreed we needed to be was Facebooklocal businesses exist on Facebook and consumers spend an enormous amount of time on Facebook. Plus, American Express says Facebook enabled the brand to target specific audiences and benefit from the sharing that occurs naturally on the platform. In order to raise awareness of Small Business Saturday, American Express launched a media campaign on Facebook. Utilizing a series of ad placements including Marketplace Ads and Premium Reach Blocks, which drove to a dedicated Small Business Saturday Page, AmEx sought to gain maximum awareness of the movement and encourage consumers to engage.

Results
The partnership with Facebook was successful in encouraging consumers and small business owners to take an action related to Small Business Saturday. Across all metrics, American Express saw positive differences when comparing those citing Facebook as a source of awareness versus those not encountering Small Business Saturday on Facebook. On Small Business Saturday, small businesses saw a 28 percent lift in revenue over the prior year, compared to a 9 percent lift for all retailers. This was a threefold increase versus what total retail was able to see, says John. That certainly made an impact on these small businesses.

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Facebook was effective in driving public opinion of American Express. Among the general public, nearly forty seven percent of those who cited Facebook as a source have a more favorable impression of AmEx versus thirty percent of those who are aware from sources other than Facebook. Among Cardmembers, sixty five percent of those who cited Facebook as a source have a more favorable opinion of the brand, compared to forty nine percent who did not cite Facebook as a source. More than 100,000 small business owners downloaded point-of-purchase and promotional materials from the Small Business Saturday Facebook Page and 10,000 small businesses signed up and received free Facebook advertising (this offer sold out). Over 1.4 million people joined the movement by liking Small Business Saturday on Facebook. This means the brand can now reach over 100 million friends of those fans with Friends of Connections Targeting. 41 elected officials declared November 27, 2010 Small Business Saturday including Mayor Bloomberg of New York. Small Business Saturday received approximately 3,000 press mentions.

The company credits the power of this community and its cross-media campaigns for enabling it to quickly create a movement with 40 percent awareness among Americans. The speed at which we could get a message in market and iterate on it, literally in the course of a day, is not something you can do through email, direct mail or TV, says Susan. Not only were we able to get a fan base of over a million people on Facebook supporting Small Business Saturday, but when you think about their friends, were talking about over 100 million people being aware of Small Business Saturday, says John. We dont know any other way that we could have scaled that level of awareness and that level of engagement in about two and a half weeks. Weve built an engaged community around a cause that people are passionate about Susan says. The million and a half fans dont go awaythey are now a permanent community. John adds that as a marketer, the challenge for American Express is how do we engage people and get them involved in the things we are doing that we jointly value. When you do that, you change the way people feel about your brand and your company, and that is the most important thing that marketing can do today. That is the outcome of the Facebook and American Express effort behind Small Business Saturday.

American Express says Facebook helped create the community that made Small Business Saturday credible and so successful. Facebook allowed us to achieve connectedness, creating a sense of community around an effort to drive customers to small businesses, which we could not have accomplished in any other way, says John. You dont often get to work on a project where you really feel like youre making a difference for an entire community. In addition, Susan says that as the Facebook community grew, so did the movements credibility and press attention.

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The Future
Going forward, Susan says American Express will be looking for additional ways to further ingrain Small Business Saturday into the American culture. Facebook will continue to be the heart of our community and well continue to inspire that community to be the evangelists for small businesses in their communities, she says. She adds that after Small Business Saturday, American Express concluded that Facebook is not optional. It is an essential and hyper-efficient piece of the equation. Internally, Susan says, We learned how to really operationalize social media for a very specific outcomethe possibilities at this point are infinite. American Express and Facebook will continue to partner in their shared goal of supporting small businesses. This is the kind of partnership you want when youre developing something new and doing something as grand as trying to inspire a nation Susan says. John adds, Since working on Small Business Saturday, theres an enormous amount of trust between our companies and therefore, even a greater desire to partner on additional projects. American Express and Facebook truly partnered and put their assets on the table to get the results that we achieved.