Grant McCracken posted two great blogs about the M. Night Shyamalan American Express commercial - one right after the other. In the first, he highlights the ad's effect of causing him, the viewer, to "make stuff up." This, he argues, is a good thing: "When we unleash indeterminacy, consumers will rush in to make things up, including our messages and our brands." He has a point - American Express clearly has the confidence in its product to allow consumers to create their own brand message for the card. And from that perspective, mylifemycard seamlessly transitions into yourlifeyourcard. And further, AmEx has assembled as variegated a motley crew of icons and role-models as you could wish - if M. Night is not one on whom you can project your own message, surely you can find a hero among Robert DeNiro, Ken Watanabe, Laird Hamilton, Ellen Degeneres, Tiger Woods, need I go on?
And then it got better - Grant followed up blog #1 with blog #2, in which he notes "AmEx releases Shyamalan from the constraints of advertising that Shyamalan might release us from the constraints of advertising." Brilliant. And he goes on, "AmEx is so sophisticated on this score, they are not even jamming the brand into their own ads. In the evolutionary order of things, this is pretty remarkable. More important, it is, from a strategy point of view, exactly on target."
We stand revised.
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