Andy Plesser: (Video) American Express "Unstaged" Online Video Live Concerts Drive Card Growth, Digitas' Beeching

PARIS -- Branded entertainment is driving customer acquisition for American Express via its Unstaged concert series, says Mark Beeching, Worldwide Chief Creative and Strategy Officer at Digitas, the digtal agency for American Express, in this interview with Beet.TV

American Express has presesented several "American Express Unstaged" concerts with top performing artists, including one in London last week with Usher.

The concerts are live streamed via Vevo and YouTube where they often draw millions of views. Many more views are generated via on-demand clips.

The concerts are also an opportunity to weave in social media. "Usher was on stage with live Twitter feeds and interacting with them, and there's a sense that you are closer to the action than even if you were in the auditorium," Beeching tells us in this video interview.

"The value takeaway for the brand, and it's not just one takeaway, is that people are recommending the brand, and when it's connected to social it drives usage of the card around entertainment but also acquisitions because people get a sample of what it's like to be an American Express member. It's like Groupon for the soul."

American Express has also utilized social services like Twitter via its Twitter Sync project that lets cardmembers sync their card to their Twitter account and then receive discounts directly on the card for certain tweeted offers. "The means of delivering the benefit is the means of acquiring the new card," Beeching tells us.

We caught up with him on Monday at the UbiQ conference in Paris, where he was a speaker.

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