American Express Campaign Features London Street Artist Josephine Hicks

The new American Express global brand platform – Powerful Backing: Don’t Do Business / Don’t Live Life Without It – launches in the UK this week, with a multimillion pound campaign featuring a series of media innovations and ‘firsts’ for the financial services company. 

Marking a new approach to Out of Home (OOH) media, American Express has commissioned the celebrated London-based street artist Josephine Hicks to create a 6.8m x 11m mural on Ebor Street, Shoreditch, offering a creative interpretation of the Don’t Live Life without it message. 

Hicks has explored the vitality and energy of life in the mural, drawing inspiration from the many ways that American Express supports customers to live life to the fullest. 

Also, high impact Digital OOH will feature adaptive creative that changes based on time of day and surroundings. For example, in the morning people in Old Street will see the message “Don’t Start Up without it”, reflecting the start-up culture of East London. In the evening, they’ll see “Don’t Late Night without it”, tapping into to the area’s thriving nightlife.

A six-week TV campaign will launch the new positioning with a series of 60 and 30 second executions, with the 60 second slots hand-picked to maximise impressions. The first airing of the TVC will be a 30-second spot during the half time break of the Brighton and Hove Albion vs Manchester United game on Friday 4 May. This screening capitalises on American Express’   shirt sponsorship of Brighton and Hove Albion and the American Express Community Stadium which is the venue for Friday’s match. The first 60-second will run during Gogglebox and then Britain’s Got Talent the following week. 

The campaign creative will also feature in OOH in high footfall sites throughout London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Cardiff and Sheffield, as well as at the American Express Community Stadium in Brighton and the O2, London where the brand sponsors a VIP lounge. Video on Demand (VoD), Digital and Social Media complete the plan with a PR and content-led customer engagement campaign and experiential activations following in the summer. 

The new brand positioning brings together all parts of American Express – consumer, corporate and merchant businesses – under one unified look and feel that will be mirrored in countries across the globe. 

The positioning is based on the insight that the more you live forward and chase your goals, be they personal or professional, the more you need someone to have your back.  All activity is centred around the powerful backing that American Express provides its Cardmembers and business customers, supporting them to thrive in both business and life.