Did anyone see the 2 min film for Amex courtesy of M. Night Shyamalan that aired during the Oscars? At first, I thought oh boy, what a sell-out. But then, as the story unfolded, it was a deftly executed extension of the mylifemycard strategy. I went to the site and watched with great interest the 5 minute short about the making of the film (check it out), how Shyamalan treated it like filming a movie, how he had free reign to shoot it as and how he wanted, etc. Now Amex isn't smart enough to buy Shyamalan's name on Google/Yahoo (which is too bad for them), but it seems like they evolved from the Cro-Magnon Rocco Restaurant days where every other free moment had a glaringly obvious "product shot" of someone paying for their meal with an Amex and every other commercial was for Amex. And I love the fact that I can download the commercial for my iPod.
It reminds me of BMW Films. Yes yes, that broke online and was revolutionary (and then copied relentlessly), but the parallels to luring well known directors (Ang Lee, John Frankenheimer), giving them free reign (with the only requirement of using BMWs in some way), and in the end producing stellar material are there.
I can't help wondering what Amex might do next.
Anyone else have a love/hate relationship to share on this one?
Posted by eporres at March 9, 2006 01:58 AM | TrackBack