American Express was repositioning the brand to ‘Don’t Live Life/Do Business Without It’ – a platform built upon ‘Powerful Backing’. With Amex behind you, you can achieve life and business goals with confidence.

The goal:

• Generate mass exposure for the relaunch

• Tangibly demonstrate ‘Powerful Backing’

• Increase brand consideration

• Provide a brand narrative to live on post launch

Despite Australia’s passion for music, the music scene was challenged and had become an ongoing cultural hot topic. Live music venues were closing, artists were impacted, and fans had fewer live options.

With long-standing music partnerships and activations already in play, Amex had a credible foundation. But these activations focused on big arenas and established artists already breaking records. Amex wanted to extend its support of the music industry to ensure emerging talent, venues, businesses and fans had the backing to keep the industry thriving for years to come.

Redefining what corporate involvement in the music industry looks like, American Express set out to create huge buzz whilst authentically demonstrating Powerful Backing.

Music Backers involved supporting the full music ecosystem with a grant program valued at $1million over 12 months – backing emerging artists, venues, businesses and fans.

To launch, we executed something massive – bringing the world’s biggest rock band, The Killers, to help reinvigorate one of Sydney’s most iconic neighbourhood venues, Selina’s. It became the perfect springboard to launch the program.

The 900 pax venue had struggled in recent years and desperately needed an upgrade. Amex not only brought Rock’N’Roll back to the venue in a big way, the venue became the first grant recipient.

The concept lends itself to a series of scalable activations, supported by ongoing, through-the-line integration. Taking inspiration from various recipient stories, Music Backers continues to evolve creatively and attract new audiences.

The core target demographic is not an age, but an individual – ‘People Going Places’ – those confidently looking to achieve their goals, but might need backing to get there.

Existing and Prospective:

• Consumer and Business Cardmembers

• Merchants

The approach:

• Showcase ‘Powerful Backing’ in an authentic way whilst creating multi-platform narratives across all touchpoints

• On-board a panel of judges to select recipients: music industry heavy-weights from labels, promoters, venues, industry bodies, artists & media

• Execute a scalable and memorable launch moment to generate media & social buzz

• Create a flexible grant structure to encourage breadth of applications and growth beyond launch

• Roll-out a through-the-line campaign to create awareness and showcase breadth of recipient backing

• Embed Music Backers into existing business partnerships

For the concept to succeed, Amex needed to be open and agile to allow individual recipient journeys to guide creative output.

May 2018: While the new brand campaign played out above-the-line, Music Backers worked in unison, tangibly demonstrating 'Powerful Backing'.

With The Killers song 'Human' being the soundtrack to the brand TVC, the band were perfect to headline the launch event, kick-starting the grant alongside emerging Aussie artist, Alex Cameron.

A teaser campaign deployed socially and to key media, with the headliner kept secret until four-days prior. The Killers were revealed on morning TV, with a social competition being the only way to secure tickets. For everyone else, the gig was live-streamed.

The event captured attention of local and international media, applications opened and the campaign began:

• ATL, BTL and influencer campaigns

• National Spotify and News.com partnership driving artist discovery/streams

• Artist recipients were given support slots at the Twilight at Taronga concert series

• 30” ads showcasing recipients: cinema, online, social

• Social content series

• Branded Fanzines

With live music under threat and a hot cultural/media topic, we positioned American Express at the centre of the conversation by offering a tangible and authentic solution.

It worked too. The Killers activation and grant launch generated mass PR and social commentary, lighting up Australian media. Through multiple campaign touchpoints, we generated ongoing traction and engagement, over-delivering on campaign objectives.

Recipients:

• 48 artists, businesses and fans backed to date, allowing them to achieve their goals

Music Backers Grant Program engagment exceed expectations:

• Earned media coverage doubled the plan: 400+ articles + 146M earned reach

• Digital ATL click through rates outperformed industry benchmarks 3 to 8.8x

• Site traffic +10%

Prospect Brand consideration increased:

• Consumer +33%

• B2B +43%

• Site and search demand +94%

Positive Media sentiment:

“This backing will do more for the brand than any attempt to convince people through messaging.” – Campaign Asia