1. 54 | Fall 2013 ANA Magazine www.ana.net
O
k, guys, I’m back, I need a tem-
plate of a template,” a geek in
oversize black glasses, a large
bowtie, and slick-backed hair
barks into a cell phone while licking an ice
cream cone. Moments later, a tunic-clad sitar
player calls out to her fellow musicians,
“Only 164 measures to go!” Next, we meet a
record nerd pawing over old albums, as she
comes upon a find. “Oh, my gosh. I’ve never
even seen this record. I’ve only read about it
in books,” she gushes, and then proceeds to
take a bite out of it with an audible crunch.
These offbeat characters, all played by
Carrie Brownstein, costar and cocreator of
the hit IFC show Portlandia, appear in a TV
commercial for American Express. The final
line of the spot: “Membership has a card for
every character.” The campaign is a far cry
from the company’s memorable spots of the
past featuring established, well-to-do celeb-
rity card members — people like fashion de-
signer Diane von Furstenberg, comedian
Tina Fey, actor Robert De Niro, and golfer
Tiger Woods.
This new tone in TV ads is just one sign
that the venerable brand seeks to broaden its
appeal to people who might never have con-
sidered themselves potential American Ex-
press members. “American Express has
something valuable to offer all customers:
Embracing
By Robin D. Schatz
Photos by Andrew Kist
Marie Devlin serves customers’ passions at American Express
THE NEW

2. 56 | Fall 2013 ANA Magazine www.ana.net
membership,” says Marie Devlin, senior
vice president of global advertising, me-
dia, sponsorship, and insights, who has
overseen global brand marketing initia-
tives at the company since 2010. “If you
look at our portfolio, there’s a breadth
of products and services. We want to
welcome more people into the American
Express membership using messaging
and communications that are inclusive,
active, and approachable.”
In her more than three years on the
job, Devlin has worked to challenge the
perception that American Express is not
for everyone. While the company is
known for offering products to pre-
mium customers, she concedes that
some non-members may feel that Amer-
ican Express doesn’t want them, or that
the company doesn’t offer products that
meet their current needs. Instead, her
team is getting out the message that
American Express has cards and ser-
vices for everyone, and promoting
membership benefits provided by prod-
ucts across the portfolio — from a pre-
paid debit product the company
introduced at Walmart stores, to the
company’s Platinum Card. “We’re do-
ing a lot of work now that talks about
how you are a member of a community
of people who are advantaged because
of their membership with us,” Devlin
says. “We have a powerful network of
partners, merchants, and card members
that affords advantages to each person
who is part of the network.”
Brand Stewardship
Devlin joined American Express after
almost two decades at Quaker Oats and
PepsiCo. She was most recently the
chief marketing officer of Quaker Foods
and Snacks, leading the marketing, con-
sumer insights, and new product devel-
opment teams for a product portfolio
that included Quaker Oats, Cap’n
Crunch, and Rice-A-Roni. Admittedly,
it’s a big leap from food products to fi-
nancial services, but her job switch re-
flects a common theme: a stewardship
of iconic brands. “What attracted me to
American Express is how great the
brand is, the company’s commitment to
serving customers, and its culture of in-
novation. It felt very similar to my past
experiences in that way.”
Devlin has not always been a mar-
keter. After graduating with a degree in
accounting from the University of Notre
Dame, she landed a job at KPMG, where
she worked for just over four years. But,
she says, “I realized I didn’t want to do
accounting forever.” So she went back to
school to get her MBA in finance and
marketing at Northwestern University’s
Kellogg School of Management.
Her financial background, she be-
lieves, is an asset in her current role. “It’s
important to understand the profitability
of the business and how it gets there,”
she says. “You have to think about not
only what your customers value, but
what it costs to deliver that value and the
related selling and marketing expenses,
in order to make the best trade-offs.”
When she came on board at Ameri-
can Express, Devlin found that existing
customers understood and loved the
brand, associating it with service, trust,
and security. Attracting prospective cus-
tomers, however, was more challenging.
“Sometimes folks that have not yet had
an interaction with us still know we’re a
good brand. They think, ‘I’ve heard a lot
of good things about American Ex-
press,’” Devlin says. “But then they ad-
mit, ‘But it’s not for me.’”
In some non-members’ minds, Devlin
explains, American Express membership
is “for when you have become a success,
for when you’ve arrived.” Today, the
company is working to spread a differ-
ent message. “We are about while you’re
on your journey,” she says. “Today,
what we’re aiming to do is take the
brand once viewed as exclusive and ‘not
for me’ or ‘only for when I travel,’ to a
brand with products that have great ben-
efits you can use every day to enrich your
life,” Devlin says.
Cut to the television spot with
Brownstein as a suburban mom at the
supermarket checkout counter with a
giant jar. “Please don’t judge the
amount of peanut butter we’re get-
ting,” she tells the clerk as she swipes
her American Express card. Gone are
“We’re doing a lot of work
now that talks about how
you are a member of a
community of people who
are advantaged because
of their membership with
us. We have a powerful
network of partners,
merchants, and card
members that affords
advantages to each
person who is part of the
network.”

3. 58 | Fall 2013 ANA Magazine www.ana.net
the spots of Fey boasting about how
her AmEx card gives her access to the
exclusive airport lounge. “We are all
about finding the right product for
each person,” Devlin says.
American Express was founded in
Buffalo, N.Y., in 1850 as an express
freight business. It gradually evolved to
serve those customers’ own travel and
business needs, introducing money orders
in 1882 and traveler’s checks in 1891.
The first American Express charge card
didn’t follow until 1958. Today, the com-
pany has a variety of products that range
from debit and checking account alterna-
tives and card products, to offer plat-
forms, and even a joint venture with
Vente Privee selling designer goods at dis-
counted prices. While best known for
their fee-based charge cards that must be
paid off every month, American Express
today offers fee-free credit cards, as well
as prepaid cards and co-branded cards
with companies such as Costco, Delta,
Hilton HHonors, and Starwood Hotels
and Resorts, and a suite of products and
services aimed at small-business owners.
One of the company’s newest prod-
ucts, Bluebird, is a next-generation alter-
native to debit and checking accounts
that is sold exclusively at Walmart and
online. Applicants don’t need to un-
dergo a credit check, nor do they need a
bank account. Customers can load the
card with new funds at most Walmart
checkout counters or get their paychecks
or benefit checks deposited directly to
the FDIC-insured account. They can
also use their Bluebird phone app to
write checks or pay a friend and manage
their family’s finances.
Devlin points out that Bluebird, along
with the company’s prepaid product of-
ferings, is designed to help make Ameri-
can Express more appealing to a broader
range of customers who may not feel
that they are being properly served with
other banking options. So far, the strat-
egy seems to be working. Eighty-five per-
cent of Bluebird cardholders are new to
American Express, and 50 percent are
under age 35. “We’re pleased with the
response to Bluebird from customers. It
underscores what we already know and
believe, that consumers want to be a part
of the American Express membership,”
Devlin says. “They just need a product
that fits their lifestyle.”
Passion Projects
Attracting a broader membership takes
“really getting to know our prospective
customers, what makes them tick, and
“[American Express is]
really getting to know our
prospective customers,
what makes them tick,
and inspiring engagement
with the brand.”

4. 60 | Fall 2013 ANA Magazine www.ana.net
inspiring engagement with the brand,”
Devlin says.
To that end, American Express com-
missioned The LifeTwist Study from the
Futures Co., a global strategic insight and
innovation consultancy headquartered in
London. The results, released in May, in-
dicate a profound shift in the way people
judge personal success. According to the
report, “Americans have recalibrated the
linear path to which previous generations
once aspired. In its place, people are em-
barking on a route full of twists, turns,
detours, and side trips.”
Eighty-three percent of those sur-
veyed called themselves “a work in prog-
ress,” and respondents said the biggest
markers of personal
success are good
health and “finding
time for the impor-
tant things in life.”
They ranked having
“a lot of money”
only 20th, out of a
list of 22 contribu-
tors to success. And
75 percent of re-
spondents placed the
pursuit of an interest
or hobby at the top
of their bucket list.
Inspired by that
data, American Ex-
press launched the
Passion Project, a series of videos on You-
Tube that profiled “makers, creators, and
mold breakers.” These Passion Project
members are people doing important, cre-
ative, and personally meaningful things —
for example, Scott Harrison, founder of
Charity: Water, which brings clean, safe
drinking water to communities in devel-
oping countries. “We also invited the gen-
eral public to submit their own Passion
Projects,” Devlin says. Ten entries per
month, through the end of 2013, are
awarded an American Express gift card
worth $2,000 to support their passions.
Moreover, Passion Project participants
can share inspirational stories and read
articles about how to live a more fulfilling
life on the blogging platform Tumblr.
In another effort to reach out to a
wider audience, the company launched
the American Express Unstaged concert
series in 2010 that live-streamed con-
certs in partnership with YouTube and
music-video distributor Vevo. The digi-
tal platform pairs a renowned director
with a musical act. It’s part of a long
tradition of sponsoring musical events
for the benefit of its members and pros-
pects, Devlin says.
“We know that so many people are
passionate about music and we want to
introduce our brand to those who may
not be familiar with it by bringing them
unique content that they can actively en-
gage with,” she explains. “Viewers
have the ability to se-
lect camera angles,
join the conversation
through a Twitter ag-
gregator, and even
impact the live per-
formances. Unstaged
is an example of how
we are trying to show
how American Ex-
press can enrich ar-
eas of peoples’ lives
that they are most
passionate about and
begin building a rela-
tionship that can ul-
timately lead to
membership.”
As American Express forges ahead
with an ambitious agenda, Devlin stresses
that the brand’s original guiding princi-
ples — service, trust, and security — are
the very things that will allow the com-
pany to attract new members. “Accom-
plishing everything that we have set out
to do will undoubtedly present chal-
lenges. But the legacy, heritage, and his-
tory of 160 years also gives us an
advantage,” she asserts. “We know ex-
actly what American Express stands for,
and we are not changing the brand.
Those guiding principles are ultimately
what allow us to enter new markets, wel-
come in new customers, and create win-
win situations for our business and
our customers.”
1. BE PASSIONATE. As Ralph Waldo
Emerson said, “Nothing great was ever
achieved without enthusiasm.” Your work
product reflects your passion for your
brand, your category, and your consum-
ers. The best marketers stay curious, love
the discipline of marketing, and are
excited to apply their knowledge to their
business opportunities every day.
2. SERVE YOUR CUSTOMERS. The
Net Promoter Score (NPS) helps our
teams gauge how strongly our customers
would recommend American Express and
its products. A word-of-mouth recom-
mendation from existing customers is
one of the most powerful forms of
marketing. It’s authentic, organic, and
comes from a trusted source.
3. UNDERSTAND YOUR COMPANY’S
BUSINESS MODEL. Knowing how to
analyze a P&L statement helps a
marketer better understand a brand’s
critical business imperatives. To make the
best trade-offs, you need to consider not
only what customers value but the cost of
delivering that value.
4. EMBRACE THE DIGITAL
REVOLUTION. Social media provides
new platforms where you can build deep
relationships with customers. American
Express has a strong presence on many
social platforms, including Facebook,
Twitter, and YouTube, where we’re
sponsoring the Passion Project to
highlight “makers, creators, and mold
breakers.”
— R.S.
4 Best Practices
From Marie Devlin
“The legacy,
heritage, and
history of 160
years gives us an
advantage. We
know exactly what
American Express
stands for.”