American Express recognized Lin-Manuel Miranda as someone who shared its same values: the promise to back people, businesses and communities to thrive.

As one of Time Magazine’s most influential people in the world, Lin-Manuel is a creative and cultural phenomenon. Beyond being the creator, composer and star of Hamilton and many Broadway and Hollywood hits, he is a fierce advocate for small businesses and communities. But despite his success, he has remained active in his lifelong New York City neighborhood of Washington Heights. He is dedicated and passionate about helping his father’s native country, Puerto Rico, recover from Hurricane Maria. And he uses his platform to take on cultural issues to make meaningful differences in our communities. At his core, Lin-Manuel is the embodiment of the American Express brand.

The creative idea was to authentically highlight our shared belief that communities don’t just have small businesses, communities are small businesses. That they are an integral part of our lives no matter where you come from or where you live.

In film, we honored Lin-Manuel’s life-long neighborhood of Washington Heights by highlighting the real people and places that are special to him. Lin-Manuel then became the ambassador of Amex’s largest commitment to supporting the prosperity of communities, Small Business Saturday. Together, we helped show the importance of shopping small and how it helps our communities thrive.

In early 2019 Lin-Manuel brought a production of Hamilton to Puerto Rico to aid in recovery efforts after the devastation of Hurricane Maria. We created a card member experience around the initiative and helped to shine a light on the importance of ‘shopping small’ in supporting the small business community on the island.

American Express believes in the role of small businesses in driving the economic vitality of local communities. With that mission, Amex created Small Business Saturday (SBS) in 2010 to revitalize the small businesses struggling to survive the recession. Lin-Manuel Miranda has long been a vocal advocate for the small businesses in his home community of Washington Heights that have shaped him both personally and professionally.

Together with a shared belief that small businesses are the bedrock of our unique, diverse, and prosperous communities, we set out to pave the way for small businesses and communities everywhere to flourish.

We launched with a :60s spot, giving viewers a personal look into Lin-Manuel’s neighborhood of Washington Heights, casting his family, friends, and small business owners. Debuting nationally during the 2018 US Open, this film resonated heavily with viewers and his fan-base, who loved seeing this personal side of him.

Gearing up for Small Business Saturday in November, we then created content honing in on the small businesses important in Lin-Manuel’s life showing their role in helping communities thrive. This work ran in high profile media placements in the weeks leading up to SBS with accompanying social and digital components.

The partnership expanded in January 2019 with an effort to draw attention and support to Puerto Rico. As Lin-Manuel brought Hamilton to the island, we created a travel experience for cardmembers including early access to Hamilton tickets, and helped magnify the importance of the shop small initiative in post-hurricane Puerto Rico.

The impact of this partnership has been unprecedented and has only just begun to unfold. To date, the partnership has generated over 1.8 billion earned media impressions, and contributed to a record-setting Small Business Saturday in 2018 with an estimated 104 million* shoppers spending 17.8 billon dollars*. The partnership has also further extended into Puerto Rico, magnifying the importance of ‘shopping small’ on the island and helping the Puerto Rican economy get back on its feet.