Best Practice | A New Kind of Interview with American Express (Amex)

In a fun interview format shared across social media, American Express (Amex) used current employees as talent brand ambassadors. In this mini-employee series, Member x Colleague looks behind the scenes of the Amex brand to feature different employees explaining what it is like to work at the company, and what their products are all about. 

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Why the practice was needed 

The initiative aimed to promote the Amex brand to the outside world in a modern, approachable, and interactive way. Amex decided to select six colleagues with different job profiles to conduct interviews facilitated by a Brand Ambassador. The organisation wanted the conversations to be authentic and emotive while providing an in-depth look at what it is like to work at Amex. The conversations were intentionally conducted with a wide range of different Amex employees, from career starters to executives in upper management positions. 

Read More: Best Practice | How NTT DATA Colombia is Reassessing the Employee Value Proposition 

How the practice was implemented 

• The project was a cooperative project between the marketing and HR departments. 
• A Member (i.e., a cardholder or customer) meets a Colleague (an employee at Amex) and the two talk about a specific topic. An Amex Brand Ambassador joins the conversation to help facilitate the discussion.  
• In an interview format, Amex organised conversations on their brand as an employer, including focusing on their strategic points: career, leadership, wellbeing, diversity, and inclusion.  
• The colleagues Amex filmed all received training on communication (i.e., how to keep their wording gender-neutral, etc.) and on social media use. 
• These individual videos were each linked to distinct locations from the Global Dining Collection to create an authentic and relaxed atmosphere. 
• The conversations from the campaign were later edited in different formats (IG-TV, Reel, Post) and integrated on all channels (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.). The videos were then shared on social media at different points in time. 

Read More: Personalisation in 2023: How the Employee Experience Will Be Impacted by Increasing Personalisation at Work Across Asia-Pacific 

Some benefits of this initiative: 

• It gave Amex fans new insights and a special kind of exposure on social media.  
• Through this initiative, Amex used real people from diverse backgrounds to showcase their diversity within the company. Exciting topics were explored, telling personal stories, highlighting challenges, and addressing questions from the community. 
• By subtitling the videos, special attention was paid to accessibility so that deaf and hard-of-hearing people could also watch the interview series. 

A breakdown of the mini-series interviews: 

• Episode 1 was with the Head of Private Clients discussing a career with family and female empowerment. 
• Episode 2 was with the Team Leader in Account Development on corporate culture and team leadership. 
• Episode 3 was with an HR career starter on Amex as an employer. In the episode, they explored what Amex does as an employer for its employees. This episode covered international career opportunities, inclusion and diversity, leadership, and wellbeing. 

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Results 

The series was successful, and Amex continued it after the first series. 

• The reach, number of views and interactions can be named as relevant KPIs on Instagram. 
• A total of 1 085 fans interacted with the Member x Colleague format, and Amex Germany reached a total of 45 052 Instagram users; this resulted in an engagement rate of 2.4%. 

Final thoughts  

Using this mini-series, Amex was able to highlight its EVP and strengthen its employer branding. Alongside this, the interviews work as a great marketing asset. It is a win-win as customers and employers engage with one another in a new and exciting way.