To reward cardholders and to attract music lovers to the American Express Co. brand, AmEx for the second consecutive year is sponsoring its “Unstaged” concert series, which kicks off on March 23 with Duran Duran performing at the Mayan Theatre in Los Angeles.
AmEx launched “Unstaged: An Original Series from American Express” in 2010 with concerts from such artists as Arcade Fire, Sugarland and John Legend.
“We know our cardmembers are passionate about music, and we looked at how we would serve our cardmembers and the music industry by creating a platform for an amazing artist and director,” Jessica Igoe, AmEx vice president of global sponsorship marketing, tells PaymentsSource.
AmEx offered concert tickets only to AmEx cardholders through its online newsletters and through Facebook, and the show sold out in five minutes, says Igoe.
The concert series is broadcast on YouTube.com’s VEVO music channel, and AmEx brings in a famous director to produce the show online. For Duran Duran’s show, cutting edge director David Lynch will take the helm.
“With each year, we look at how we make the experience more relevant for cardmembers and more exciting than the last one,” says Igoe, who notes that AmEx is brainstorming on how to give cardholders more exclusive content through the online presentation.
The online event is not a direct sales pitch for AmEx in that there are no pop-ups that say “apply for a card here,” but the company is still interested in more subtle acquisitions, Igoe says. Targeting the online music community has more nuances to consider in the digital space, and the company is still determining how to attract those consumers to AmEx, she notes.
“We think we can attract new cardholders by being authentic in the music space,” Igoe says. “We don’t do it in a heavy-handed, ‘salesy’ kind of way; it’s more important to be relevant to the consumer in something they love.”
The concert also becomes an interactive online experience, as viewers may choose their own camera angles, Tweet questions to the band for a pre-show interview and vote for the closing song.
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