At Stern's Behest, AmEx Makes Changes To Ad Strategy

Stern Influencing American Express’ Sponsorship

After consulting with NBA Commissioner David Stern in early '02, league sponsor American Express "re-evaluated and shifted its advertising philosophy from simple branding to leveraging corporate sponsorships," according to Rich Thomaselli of AD AGE, who notes the company launched a national TV campaign last week touting its NBA and WNBA affiliation. The five spots, via Ogilvy & Mather, N.Y., build on "The Official Card" campaign AmEx introduced last summer prior to tennis' U.S. Open, "an umbrella campaign for sponsorships that leverage" AmEx' official-card status with its sports and entertainment properties. The campaign "is a marked departure for [AmEx], which traditionally spends upward of $300[M] in measured media each year but was barely getting any impact out of its estimated $20[M] annual sponsorship with the NBA." Stern: "I basically said to them, 'Hey, we'll keep taking your money.' I called [AmEx Exec VP/Global Advertising & Branding John Hayes] and said that we loved American Express but we wondered if they were getting the most out of their sponsorship." Hayes said Stern "was right. It got to the point where, after eight years [as an NBA corporate sponsor], we needed to question the value of this and what direction we wanted to go. I brought my team together and basically said, 'Help me understand whether or not this should continue.'" Hayes felt AmEx "gained value from having these corporate sponsorships, but was looking for a way to broaden the programs' impact." Hayes: "There were many factors that we considered. The NBA, more than any other sports entity, is part of popular culture. Our card member base overlaps a lot of the fan base of the NBA and WNBA. With the popularity of [Rockets C] Yao Ming and the foreign players, we can get across the point we've always tried to make that, like the NBA, American Express is global" (AD AGE, 4/21).