According to the American Express Shop Small Impact survey, leading up to the 2021 holiday shopping season, 78% of small business owners said holiday sales would impact their ability to keep their doors open in 2022. So for American Express’ 12th Small Business Saturday, it was more important than ever for the brand to help drive traffic to small businesses during this critical sales window.

American Express presents Jingle Sells: 100 Jingles for 100 Small Businesses. From barbers to bakeries to bookstores to bike shops, we sang the praises of over 100 small shops around the country with their very own custom jingle. The lyrics of each jingle were developed in partnership with each small business owner, to ensure they received a tailored piece of marketing that truly reflected their business. We helped them identify the one big thing that was most memorable and then turned that into an earworm performed by professional musicians and a cast of singers including Broadway performers.

The unique holiday jingles were designed to help support the small businesses that are the heartbeats of their communities. The goal was to help bring attention to the importance of shopping small while also offering small businesses something that they can use to market themselves throughout the holiday season and beyond.

Our strategic media approach balanced high awareness, national channels that delivered scale with hyper-targeted, local tactics in key markets like New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington DC that drove more meaningful consumer engagements. The jingles ran across streaming audio, radio, social and online video, were highlighted on morning news programs and late night talk shows and amplified by TikTok influencers who developed their own customized jingles. The campaign delivered 493 million impressions over a 7-week media flight between 11/15/21 – 12/31/21.

With Jingle Sells as part of the broader campaign, American Express recorded an all-time high $23.3 billion in estimated U.S. consumer spending at independent retailers and restaurants – an 18% increase from 2020 according to the American Express 2021 Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey.

The campaign also showed Amex’s continued commitment to small businesses and the strengthened relationships with merchants. And best of all, we helped places like The Sweet Maple Café, Andytown Coffee Roasters, the Semicolon Bookstore and countless others during the crucial holiday sales period.