If I was going to pick only one social IMC program to talk about, it would be the American Express Members Project. Not only to the smart use of social IMC and all the components that we have in there. Including gamification. But it also has something else. We always talk about trying to get the influencers to talk to our exact target market to bring them in. This did it in what I call using OPN. Other people's networks, essentially the way they structured it was really, really smart. To essentially get not-for-profits to advertise for American Express to bring people to American Express that were in their exact target market to make this whole thing work. The idea behind it was this challenging phase, American Express wanted to attract young fairly wealthy college and recent college graduates to takes it's card. The problem is every other card issuer in the world wants the same target market. So push marketing wasn't working. Sending things out like emails and doing banner ads and all that stuff, wasn't really impacting the market in a very effective way. What American Express needed was a way to become a part of their world. The world of the young, fairly wealthy college or recent college graduate to become effective and entice him to take their card. Essentially doing this through empowerment. The empowering concept that they used was really innovative. They said what are young people concerned with? You know, they're not concerned with taking credit cards, but instead they're concerned with other things. What they found is that they're very concerned about their immediate world. Their environment, the education of children, the conservation of their natural resources. They responded well to things like think global, act local. And so what Americans Express did is they created the Members Project. The idea of the Members Project was anyone can join. And what they did is they allowed you to nominate any not-for profit, NFP that you want to support. It could be a national one, it could be a global one, but it could also be your local not for profit, just trying to feed the hungry and things like that. What they did is, American Express put up a large sum of money, and the more votes that each one of these entities got, they would be given money from this American Express pool to make it work. All you had to do to do this was to join it, identify the not for profit, or nominate a not for profit that you wanted, and cast a vote. But the key is, the more votes you had, the more money that they would get. So they had additional votes to be gained by getting an AmEx card, using an AmEx card, but more importantly just bringing in all of your friends and people just like you to become a part of the members' project to vote for the not-for-profit you supported. And so what happened was as they got this going, the not for profits realized that this was a way for them to get the money they needed to do the good work they're doing. So as a result of that, they began to talk to all of their followers, to say come on over. So Amex not only got into the target market they wanted, but they got very broad coverage here, and what you did is when you came in, you had to register for this. So they now had a database to drive messaging and analyze what people were doing. They could gamify it by telling you that your particular not-for-profit's in fifth place and they need to get up to fourth to get the money, and things like that. So it's really, really a smart concept, a smart program. So what they did is they went out on, first on YouTube and then onto national TV with a series of ads. This one is about conservation and the environment, other ones were on education. And again, all of them can be seen on YouTube. >> We're part of nature, and as we destroy nature, we destroy ourselves. It's a selfish thing to wanna protect nature. [MUSIC] I never intended to be a businessman. We made the world's best climbing equipment out of here. We realized the putting in and taking out of all these pitons was causing damage to the rock, so I made these little soft aluminum chalks that you just put in with your fingers. I am a dam buster. We have been working for years to take this dam out. This reservoir behind us is only four feet deep. The water gets real warm, kills a lot of the life in the river. When you take out a dam, that is a real victory. I mean a concrete victory so to speak. I get an idea to do something, I like to take the first step. If that feels good I take another step. To do good you actually have to do something. >> No matter what you want to do, Members Project from American Express can help you take the first step. Vote, volunteer, or donate at takepart.com. >> Okay, very effective ads. Again, they ran them on YouTube. They also put them onto national TV along with a traditional media approach as well as a social media one, very multimedia. To get on and get the message out, and what happened was it was an effective use of OPN when the not for profits realized they could get money. They began to put together advertising, so essentially if you go out and look at look it on YouTube. There are thousands of these videos, all created by the not for profits, not by American Express, that essentially advertise the American Express members project and your need to do it. So here's an example of a user-generated, or a not for profit-generated appeal that went out to all of their members so they could get the money that they wanted. [MUSIC] Hi, this is Paige Drakman blogging today from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania about my American Express Members Project, saving the lives of malnourished children. I actually have to catch a train that is gonna be leaving in 10 minutes, so I gotta make it short. We 24 hours left in order to secure an additional $200,000 in American Express funding. That IMC is going to be able to put to great use. If you wanna see stories about lives that they're touching all over the world, please go to the IMC YouTube channel. Thank you for your support, thank you for your votes, thank you for getting the word out. We really are gonna make a difference. >> So it shows you the power of this and how the people put out their own media to make this happen. In addition to that they got celebrities to do it, and so you can see that they have a glee and other groups that are doing it. They also gamified it very smartly, in other words all the way through. You can go on and see a scoreboard of all the different sorts of things that the members project supports, all the different causes where you're at. So that you can go on and take come on folks, we gotta get more votes, let's get make this happen. And then at the end of course, they give it out at the awards to their final winning charities to drive through. And so the other thing is that it was essentially multimedia. So bloggers really enjoyed being a part of the American Express project and talking about. So you can see a lot of blog things out there. You also see a lot of print media, most of it developed by other organizations in order to make it happen. But you notice over on the left they have the countdown to when it's gonna happen, when they're gonna give out the money. It's very well-publicized when that's gonna happen. Because that get's everybody going after it to become a part. So, it's very well done. It's giving the not-for-profits what they want, it's giving the young people what they want, and as a result, it sold a lot of cards, but it also Is a really good use of social IMC. And they also went out with a multimedia approach. You're going to see them on banner adds. They do talk to influencers in certain areas. There's a lot of video, of course DRTV, Direct Response Television is out there, e-journals, Twitter, social communities, they're everywhere talking about the things that people want. And this one is that is regenerated year after year after year. And there's been a huge value for American Express, because it's a great social IMC program. So it uses OPN, which is a great way to grow market share. If there's a way to do it in your organization through the influencers, that's the fastest way to grow. It was really aligned with the community's mission and was extremely empowering. It integrated its products smartly. It let the community run itself, essentially everybody knows the rules. The key is how can you get to the top. They made is fun, interesting, and a really profitable experience. So American Express members project is a great example of social IMC at work.
