It looks like American Express is going all-in in creating and prioritizing custom content for publishers in an attempt to reach the masses.
Starting today, September 10th American Express is going to be launching a massive content campaign that is going to focus on providing custom content and distributed by BuzzFeed, Vox Media, and Bustle. The focus of material will be around promoting its Pay It Plan It feature which launched about a year ago.
When asked about this new approach American Express had this to say as cited in a recent Digiday article,
“This campaign really flips our approach from a media perspective on its head. We’ve realized that we can’t continue to shout at our customers with mass-reaching media vehicles and expect them to have some meaningful impact or relationship with us.”
The article goes on to discuss the overall participation each media outlet will have in the campaign.
An interesting take away from this approach from a marketing perspective will be whether this campaign provides growth of the Pay It Plan it features and loyalty to the program as well. Obviously, when you look at a traditional mass marketing campaign, you’re looking at reach and frequency however with this new custom content campaign you are going to be reaching a smaller overall market. The market, however, is going to be better custom-tailored to the individuals that you are trying to reach.
As this campaign begins to unfold, I’m sure marketers and American Express are going to be very interested in how this campaign ultimately performs as it may send a signal to other industries that they need to take a more in-depth look into the platforms and messages they are executing on.