Open for Business? Not Quite

I'm not greedy. I can live quite comfortably on a mere $5 million a year. So I would be very happy to have just 1% of the ad dollars that are largely wasted on ads like this one from American Express.

It makes one think that such corporations must have summer interns they don't know what to do with. So they give them a job that requires no experience, training or common sense — namely, requesting and OK'ing the company's business-to-business advertising.

How else can we explain this feeble, jumbled ad for the American Express card's Open (for Business? for Small Business?) program. It's an awkward name I found difficult to use in a sentence.

Except for advertising designed to build a commodity's brand image, it's always seemed to me that print advertising should seek to answer three basic questions:

1. Who does the message target?

2. Is the message clearly conveyed?

3. Is the message important?

And these days there's a fourth requirement, or at least a highly desirable consideration:

4. Is the ad involving and interactive?

These requirements have not even come close to being met by this ad. The main headline seems to be “OPENARMS.”

What in the world could that possibly mean?

Well, reading between the lines — reading a lot between the lines — it presumably means that the AmEx Open for Business or Open for Small Business program welcomes small business owners with open arms.

This “headline” is superimposed on a large testimonial photo occupying most of the ad, showing two business partners who are AmEx customers and briefly telling their story — very briefly. About all we learn is something of the nature of their business, and that it's small enough and personal enough that they hand-delivered a rush order to an important retailer. And, oh yes, a casual afterthought — “[W]hen we sorely needed better cash flow, American Express cared enough to make sure we got it.”

Aha! So that was the intended message. Better cash flow. In 9-point type.

Now we know the answers to my three basic questions.

1. Who does this message target?

   Small business owners with cash-flow problems. (Namely, not enough of it at critical times.)

2. Is the message clearly conveyed?

   No. It's lost in a jumble of elements. Down below is the word “Open” in blue reverse plate, with no explanation of what it means other than “How American Express Serves Small Business.”

3. Is the message important?

   Yes! For many small businesses, it literally can be a matter of life and death.

   So I observed these three requirements in constructing my makeover.

   
   

   

   My headline reaches out to grab readers who are small business owners with occasional cash-flow issues. But the term “cash flow” is so cold and abstract. So after consulting several actual small business owners, I recast it in human terms most prospects could immediately identify with. In my sub-headline I complete the thought by introducing the Open program and promising three ways it can help solve the problem described.

   Then the panels below offer three specific ways American Express can help you manage your cash-flow problem:

   • An online advice page (which I've invented for the purpose of this makeover).

   • Members-only rebates on bills from suppliers like FedEx, Kinko's and Hertz. Here, instead of talking about the modest 5% and 10% discounts offered by participating partners, I thought it more impressive to talk about the $50 million members are saving (a figure I extracted from a talk by the program's president).

   • Availability of a term loan or credit line of $100,000, which can be applied for online without collateral or an AmEx Business card. Wow — that is important.

   I've given the SmartsCo owners' testimonial a minor role because its main thrust had been mostly just to convey that it's a charming, very personal company. In my makeover, all the emphasis is on the two partners' appreciation of AmEx's help with cash-flow matters.

4. Is the ad involving and interactive?

   I've clearly invited logging on to AmEx's Web site to learn more about how to manage cash flow and apply for a card.

So, unlike the original ad, my makeover gets straight to the point and makes it.

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THOMAS L. COLLINS (thomas.l.collins@verizon.net) has been a direct marketing copywriter, admaker, agency creative director and co-author of four books on marketing. He is currently an independent creative and marketing consultant based in Portland, OR.