To convince American Express Additional Cardmembers (who do not receive a statement nor do they receive points in Membership Rewards) to become titular ones, so they would start paying an annual fee for the Card. There was no precedent for this campaign.

The main problem was that they would have to start paying for what they’re getting for free. So an emotional route was taken.Aware that the target was basically dependent on the main Cardmember, we invited them to “be their own person”, and having an American Express Card of your own is a powerful symbol of that.We printed a letter on the outer envelope, with the headline “It’s time for you to see what others can’t see”. The letter was incomplete, showing only the generic parts and leaving empty spaces for the product, the benefits, etc. Inside, the rest of the letter was printed in film, with instructions to place it over the envelope and read it in full.

Sales goals were a 2% response, and that’s what the control pack (a regular letter) did. The film version obtained an 15% response rate, rapidly becoming the first best practice for this sort of campaign.