Link, Like, Love

I've written a few posts about American Express -- it's a mega brand that I really admire.  The brand is a true supporter of small business, which is something near and dear to my heart.  While the brand is huge and offers many products and services, it always manages to communicate in a simple fashion that makes it easy to understand.  As a busy consumer, I appreciate that.

The brand is also very innovative in social marketing, and in fact reinvented its membership rewards program into a social currency platform and is one of the first to figure out how to use location-based marketing.  I wrote about that too.

Now the brand is turning Facebook "likes" into real rewards too with a catchy little program called "Link, Like, Love."  When you link your American Express card to this new program, all of your Facebook brand "likes" (and those of your friends) can be turned into special offers and promotions that you will "love".  So for example, if you "like" J.Crew, you will receive special offers for when you use American Express at J.Crew.  Brilliant.  All you have to do is link your American Express card to this Facebook promotion.

I found out about the promotion through the brand's very aggressive (yes, aggressive) e-crm campaign and I've also noticed a lot of Facebook ads of course.  The brand knows where to find us, that's for sure.

I really "like" it.  It smacks of Groupon and LivingSocial, which I love giving those folks a run for their money.  And it also smacks of P&G's Facebook shopping, which I think is another step towards the future of linking brands with social media.

It's fun watching market leaders in action and then how the marketplace responds.

Do you like it ... what's your experience?  Jim.

Jim Joseph
President of Lippe Taylor
Author of The Experience Effect