Manhattan Marketing Maven

AMEX Platinum's Tin Performance

Denouement is a bitch. So is realizing that even a skeptical marketing guy can be brought up short when a favorite brand disappoints. The American Express Platinum Card phone experience turns platinum expectations to tin.

Back when I got the card, not every card and bank was pushing platinum. My card; its features, benefits and price was somewhat unique. One of the most compelling value propositions, to me,  was the Concierge service. Having a dedicated team to help you find and get stuff seemed to me to be a level of attention and service that justified the significantly higher membership fee; a service much more valuable and ego-enhancing than some of the other less dramatic benefits bundled into the program. Over the years, they helped me get stuff and make good impressions on several occasions.

So I was genuinely surprised and taken aback when I called yesterday and didn't reach a human. I was presented with a withering array of phone tree choices. As the recording whizzed along I wondered how many platinum people -- the really rich guys who rent villas, lease jets and demand personal planning for extended vacations at luxury resorts and spas -- are actually willing to press 1 then 3 then 4 and then endure 40 seconds of recorded blab.

When I finally spoke to someone, he sounded dazed and confused. He spent a lot of time telling me how slow the computer was and fumbled the recognition details -- my name and card number.  After 3 minutes of futzing around trying to pull up my records, I asked him if he was going to actually address me and my needs. I stumped the band. So after 5 minutes of being assaulted by the stark reality that somehow I lost whatever status I thought I once had, this bozo was more concerned with his system than with helping me the platinum customer. Bummer! I hung up on him in frustration.

I tried again 12 hours later and got through to a woman CSR. I asked her to get me a hotel room in Atlantic City. She sounded as if she never heard of AC; curious for a concierge dedicated to high rollers. She had no familiarity with the properties, didn't seem to know they had casinos there and had no facility for either engaging me or even faking it. My platinum dreams were dashed. 

The lesson?

If you set an expectation and charge a premium you must deliver against it. One guy, one tone of voice, and one so-so experience can un-do years of  loyal, happy and profitable customer behavior and turn a platinum guy into a whiner.. 

The Enduring Advertising Fantasy

Many businesses, especially start-ups, have an enduring fantasy that if they create a product or a service, advertisers will quickly embrace them and bankroll their brand-building efforts. It reminds me of the old Life cereal commercial where the idiot younger brother "Mikey" would east just about anything.

But advertisers aren't that dumb or that gullible or that open to ideas.

If I had a nickel for every client who told me that his or her idea was a natural for advertisers and that he or she was sure that as soon as Coke, Nike, GM or P&G see the plans the dollars will start flowing; I'd be rich already. My experience has been just the opposite. Both as a senior advertising executive and as an entrepreneur the ideas rejected outpace the ideas that even get hear by 1000:1. Advertisers and their agencies are usually the last to embrace a new idea in spite of the widespread perception that that they are forward-looking, creative, intuitive and always in search of new ideas. Its always easier, if not cheaper, to pile on than to pioneer.

Consider the public record. After almost twenty years of sustained online growth and hype the majority of ad dollars today are spent in network TV much as they were in the 1950s. Advertisers are hooked on mass audiences even now. And to the extent that they have found segmentation and embraced it, they've put their money into magazines and cable networks and a few online portals. But if you follow the bucks and ignore the blab -- mass media still rules.

To the extent that advertisers are looking for new tactics, they rely on agencies to filter and edit the ideas and vet potential media parters. Agencies have two agendas in this process: retain or extend their fees and find things that they can embrace and execute without threatening their standing with clients. Agencies have a limited appetite for inventions and inventiveness. The agencies that serve the leading brands talk the innovation talk but their business models and profit streams rely on not rocking the boat and on consistently delivering results without annoying their clients or challenging clients perceptions of their audiences and markets. There are far fewer genuine change agents among agencies than you think. But there are legions of agency executives that are expert at promoting incremental tweaks as monumental breakthroughs. And lately they are all adding digital gurus to help advertisers understand and negotiate their way online.   

Bottom Line: There is a very small window of opportunity for new ad-supported products and services and a zillion entrepreneurs and their VC backers are gunning to claim the prize. To pry a dime out of advertisers a new product or service must:

1. Address or capture a specific, preferably virgin, audience that is keenly and measurably relevant to the particular advertiser's business and has been untouched or unacknowledged by any other marketer or brand.
2. Be an exclusive ownership posture in the next slam-dunk American Idol style cultural phenomenon.
3. Be a guaranteed yet secret position in the next Google.
4. Capture completely an existing "at risk" audience that constitutes a significant portion of an advertisers revenue.
5. Be a cornerstone position in the coming of the Messiah.

Everybody else needs to figure out how to position and market their product or service to the people most likely in need of it. And find the money to build their brand without advertiser support.