Situation: Running a business can be challenging and even isolating at times. While business owners are passionate about what they do, many lack a credible community of business owners to help them navigate the ever-changing landscape. Leading to 50% of small businesses failing in the first 5 years.

Brief: American Express looked to combat that statistic by launching Business Class, a video series focused on providing insights and inspiration from a community of real Small Business Owners and globally known Business Experts across 7 countries and 10+ cities.

Objectives: Raise awareness of the Business Class brand, by educating and inspiring our small business audiences with lessons from businesses across various stages of growth. Also we looked to bring to life Amex's backing promise through Business Class by helping small business owners forge ahead today with the confidence and network they need to meet the landscape of tomorrow.

Season 2 of Business Class takes the shape of a round-the-world adventure in search of answers to questions focused on the universal human themes at the heart of the entrepreneurial experience. A little less business school, a little more school of life. Spontaneous adventure met cinematic storytelling with hosted real-world conversations and intimate documentary portrayal. Usually, a show does one or the other, but it’s the combination of these two approaches that makes Business Class stand apart from the rest. This variety is unexpected in the best way, holding our audience’s attention and assuring they never tire of any one approach.

Data gathering: We ran a research study across prospects and customers to obtain feedback directly from business owners to understand if they found Business Class educational, inspiring and/or entertaining and help inform future direction (topics, talent, entertainment/educational value, length, etc.) SBO prospects and customers watched 3 full episodes of Business Class and responded to our survey panel

Target audience: Small business owners and anyone who is entrepreneurial minded

Audience insights: Customer research proved Business Class Season 2 successful in inspiring and engaging SBOs. It affirmed that SBOs value inspirational content, as it fuels the optimism they need to push their own businesses forward. Our audience also felt the stories of businesses displaying bravery in the face of adversity helps SBOs contextualize their own hard times with a positive mindset, making them feel less alone.

Kicked off in March of 2022 with a customer research survey to inform creative strategy. Then began casting internationally, scripting, and pre-production throughout April and May. Starting in June, we traveled with our host and entrepreneur, Suneel Gupta, to 10 cities across 7 countries to meet over a dozen entrepreneurs–both newer small business owners and wildly successful experts like David Chang, Issa Rae, and Ben & Jerry. Production wrapped in September and the series launched in October of 2022.

Business Class is available on our American Express YouTube page as well as on our American Express Business Class Trends and Insights website, Amex’s B2B content hub.

The Series was supporting through a paid media campaign and promoted across paid, owned, and earned media to drive reach. Business Class proved to be successful by the community exceeding impressions, engagement, site visits, video views, and completion rate goals.

At the height of its launch, Business Class was responsible for 42% of total U.S. traffic (395,649 visits) on American Express’ B2B Content Hub, with Episode 1 being the #1 most visited site page.

Business Class proved to be successful with the community,

- Outperformed its impressions goal by 169% (221M)

- Outperformed its clicks goal by 86%

- Exceeded goals for video views by 20% (37M video views)

- Beat the YouTube benchmark completion rate for financial video series (52.32% video view rate)

- Showed high positive sentiment and ad recall across owned social channels