In 2010, American Express launched Small Business Saturday, an initiative encouraging customers to support local, brick and mortar businesses.

The inaugural day was so successful, both on the ground and on social media, that it grew into Shop Small, a larger brand within Amex that stands for bringing business back to Main Street. In addition to the annual Small Business Saturday event, Shop Small encourages American Express customers to shop locally throughout the year with promotions, rewards and special offers. While at Digitas as a Freelance Art Director, I worked on a special Shop Small offer that was only available to cardmembers in select cities. Working on a small team with a copywriter and Creative Director, we created a customer-facing landing page for the August Offer that encouraged shoppers to visit participating businesses. We also created a marketing toolkit for small business owners to promote the offer digitally and in-store.

Client / AgENCY

American Express / Digitas

Role

UI Designer

DELIVERABLES

UI Design, Banner Ads, Print Toolkit

TEAM PARTNER

Jenny Awasano, Creative Director

YEAR

2015

Primary Audience: American Express Consumers

Our work on the Shop Small August Offer was directed toward two distinct audiences: American Express cardmembers in participating cities, and small business owners.

The primary point of entry for American Express cardmembers was the offer landing page. On the page, consumers could read about the terms of the offer and view participating cities. The main feature of the page was a directory of participating local businesses that users could browse by city. Working from wireframes and using American Express digital brand guidelines, I designed a UI for desktop, mobile and tablet.

Secondary Audience: Small Business Owners

The secondary audience for the August Offer were participating small business owners. Though the landing page was intended primarily for consumers, we included a small section for merchants to confirm their participation and download a marketing toolkit. The marketing kit for participating businesses included posters and stickers to display in store, along with a digital tool for businesses to create their own customized banner ads. As an Art Director on the project, I came up with the concept for a hyper-localized banner ad that I illustrated to the client in the following frames.