Speaking to members on every different level

Where it all began
When it comes to credit cards, the competition is pretty cut throat. To encourage members to stay true, Amex created the Membership Rewards program – which allows members to earn points, and redeem them for all sorts of goodies. Essentially it’s a way for members to get more out of their credit card.

The Membership Rewards program has a range of different tiers, from young up & comers to seriously big spenders. Amex recognised that these tiers of people typically had different lifestyles, and wanted different things. So, they set out to tailor their communications to suit each membership tier.

What happened next
Working together with Lavender, we created a brand language ‘toolkit’ for each member type. In each case, we outlined what made the member unique, and how to incorporate these insights into a tone of voice. For example, we knew the platinum members were short on time and big on status – so we kept language brief, über confident and respectful.

For each tier, we created a set of headlines and messages that could be used in a range of contexts – and wrapped it all up into a nice big juicy guideline (or in Amex language, a Sourcebook). This continues to act as a ‘go to guide’ for anyone who needs to create communications for Membership Rewards.

What we like about it
There’s no doubting the power of personalised communication. Amex was lucky to have a whole wealth of info on their members, and we were able to translate this into insights that actually meant something. Nice to have the opportunity to work on such a big scale project, and tease out the nuances that makes different Amex users so very different.