American Express International Branding Strategies

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American Express International Branding
Strategies

• A Historic Global Brand Evolving to Meet Global
  and Technological Challenges

Raymond R. Ferrell VP Senior Counsel General
Counsels Office
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Overview

• Introduction
• Over 100 Years of Global Roots
• Domestic and International Brand Equity
• Differences and Challenges
• Branding Challenges in the New Media World
• Summary

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Introduction Ray Ferrell

• Senior Counsel responsible for the legal support
  of
• American Express Interactive responsible for
  customer acquisition, customer servicing and
  customer loyalty via the AMERICANEXPRESS.COM
  site.
• Global Commercial Card responsible for the
  issuance of Corporate Cards, Corporate Purchasing
  Solutions, Electronic Payments Solutions and
  other corporate payment and online reporting
  products to mid-size, large and global companies.

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Introduction Ray Ferrell

• Responsibilities
• Complex Licensing Arrangements
• Technology Integration Transactions
• Online Co-Brand Arrangements
• Commercial Card Agreements
• B2B and Cardmembers
• Laws and regulations affecting interactive sites,
  transactions, and commercial card issuance
• sales and support

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Introduction American Express

• The aspiration of American Express is to become
  the worlds most respected service brand,
• Ken Chenault

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Introduction American Express

• American Express has always been a global company
• 1895 first European office in Paris, at 6, rue
  Halévy
• 1896 office at 3 Waterloo Place in London
• 1910 offices in Southampton, Liverpool, Hamburg,
  Berlin, Bremen, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Copenhagen,
  Naples and Genoa.

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Introduction American Express
American Express Office (Waterloo 1896)
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Domestic and International Brand Equity
Differences and Challenges Business

• Dominant American Brand
• Card Share of Spend in U.S. 20
• Brand Recognition High
• Dont Leave Home Without It Karl Malden
• Membership Has it Privileges Annie Liebowitz
• My Life, My Card Tiger Woods, Robert De Niro
• Are You a Cardmember Beyonce

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges Business

• Dominant American Brand
• American Express Ranks Highest in Customer
  Satisfaction Among Credit Card Companies for the
  Second Consecutive Year (Sep 3, 2008 Credit Card
  Satisfaction Survey) JD Power and Associate

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges Business

• Brand not as well known internationally
• Reduces efficacy of branding efforts that
  capitalize on historic equity and prior ad
  campaigns
• U.S. high share and high return on branding
• International low share and low return on
  branding
• Japan has the second highest concentration of
  high spending cardmembers in the world
• Japan share of spend 2
• U.S. share of spend 20

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges Business

• Domestic Brand
• V
• acceptance
• V
• understanding

Imported Brand V lack of understanding V lack
of relevance
verses
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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges Business

• Making Global Branding More Effective
• Look to contextualize campaign to the market
• Cant just sponsor Wimbeldon like we sponsor the
  U.S. Open
• Find ways for brand to resonate with market by
  leveraging local history, culture and understand
  how Americans are viewed in the market
• Capitalize on the global commonalities of the
  affluent

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges Business

• Making Global Branding More Effective
• Focus limited budgets on key global markets where
  we will get the greatest bang for the buck
• Canada
• Mexico
• U.K.
• Italy
• Japan
• Australia

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges Business

• Optimize Channels recognize efficacy of each
  channel
• in each market
• T.V. and Print Channel - U.S. and Mexico
• Mobile - Japan
• Digital - all of international, can get into more
  depth with message and customize example of a
  channel with a disproportional impact compared to
  the investment

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges Business

• Be Careful With
• Co-Brands
• Copying from market to market

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges Legal

• Differences First to Use v. First to File
• U.S. is a first to use jurisdiction, so mark
  owners can maintain protection of their marks by
  first use for a particular good or service
• Many foreign jurisdictions are first to file
• Russia (loss of platinum card), China (of special
  importance due to counterfeiting)
• Can leverage treaties to help deal with filing in
  multiple countries
• Community Trade mark, passed in 1996 (CMT) in
  the European Union secure E.U. protection with
  one application
• Madrid Protocol U.S. filing can lead to an
  International Registration with a filing in a
  member state
• Paris Treaty U.S. filing gives you 6 month
  priority in member states

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges

• Challenges Protecting the Brand Globally
• Quality Control Imperative
• License Grant and Use Restrictions
• Watch Services
• Web sweeps
• Cease and Desist Letter and Follow Ups
• We Know Youre Out There Letter
• Monitor List
• Enforcement Actions

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges

• Challenges Protecting the Brand Globally
• Phishing
• Spoofing
• Pharming

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges

• Phishing acquiring sensitive information
  fraudulently, such as passwords and credit card
  details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person
  or business in an apparently official electronic
  communication. Phishing is typically carried out
  using email or a text message

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges

• Spoofing occurs when a third party spoofs or
  fakes a legitimate business activity by borrowing
  (or appearing to use) a legitimate domain name
  (e.g., paypal.org instead of .com) or by forging
  a legitimate domain in an email address present
  in an email communication.

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Domestic and International Brand
EquityDifferences and Challenges

• Pharming - involves redirection of an individual
  to an illegitimate website through technical
  means. For example, customer of a financial
  services site, who routinely logs into his
  account may be directed to an illegitimate
  website instead of accessing the usual
  institution website.

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Special Branding Challenges in the New Media
World

• Keywords
• Definitions
• What Drives Use
• What Drives Issues

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Special Branding Challenges in the New Media
World

• Keywords
• Definitions words or terms used to trigger
  search results in search engines. Owners of
  marks may use keyword/adword advertising to
  attempt to drive customers to their sites from
  search engines.

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Special Branding Challenges in the New Media
World

• Keywords
• What Drives Use Owners of marks may use
  keyword/adword advertising to attempt to drive
  customers to their sites from search engines.
  Owners of powerful marks may be subject to
  competitive pressure from competitors that can
  leverage the mark owners brand equity by buying
  advertising tied to searches that include the
  owners name and/or mark Competitive Keyword
  Advertising.

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Special Branding Challenges in the New Media
World

• Keywords
• What Drives Issues whether use of competitive
  keyword advertising through Googles AdWords or
  similar services violates the trademarks of
  dominant mark owners.

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Special Branding Challenges in the New Media
World

• Keywords
• U.S. Keyword advertising allowed due to mixed
  state of law
• Permitting line of cases that state that not
  use in commerce, and because the defendants did
  not use the plaintiffs trademarks on any goods
  or ads¹.
• Disallowing line of cases that state that
  defendants purchase of the keywords to be used
  in commerce to generate sales brought the
  activity under trademark law².
• International Generally not allowed as a
  violation of trademark law without mark owners
  permission.
• 1 1-800-Contacts Inc. v. WhenU.com, 414 F.3d 400
  (2d Cir. 2005) Merck Co. v. Medi Plan Health
  Consulting, Inc., 2006 WL 800756 (S.D.N.Y. March
  30, 2006)Rescuecom v. Google, 456 F. Supp. 2d
  393 (N.D.N.Y. 2006)Wells Fargo v. WhenU.com, 293
  F. Supp. 2d 734 (E.D. Mich. 2003) U-Haul v.
  WhenU.com, 279 F. Supp. 2d 723 (E.D. Va. 2003).
• 2 GEICO v. Google, Inc., 330 F. Supp.2d 700 (E.D.
  Va. 2004), Edina Realty, Inc. v. The
  MLSonline.com, Civ. No. 04-4371 (JRT/FLN), 2006
  WL 737604 (D. Minn. Mar. 20, 2006), 800-JR Cigar,
  Inc. v. GoTo Com, Inc., 2006 WL 1971659 (D.N.J.
  July 13, 2006), Buying for the Home v. Humble
  Abode, 459 F. Supp. 2d 310 (D.N.J. 2006), J.G.
  Wentworth SSC, Ltd. v. Settlement Funding, 2007
  WL 30115 (E.D.Pa. Jan 4, 2007), T.D.I
  International, Inc. v. Golf Preservations, Inc.,
  2008 WL 294531 (E.D. Ky. Jan. 31, 2008).

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Special Branding Challenges in the New Media
World

• Co-Branded Websites an analysis of the rules
  and policies that
• govern when 2 or more brands appear on a Web
  page.
• Private label Sites hosted by third party, but
  has look and feel of the company site.
• Exhibit A
• True co-brand sites hosted by the company or
  a partner and the user cannot reasonably
  determine which brand controls the site.
• Framing hosted by the company, with the
  companys navigation header, but a third party
  partners look and feel dominating the rest of
  the page.
• Exhibit B
• Hyperlinking hosted by the third party, but
  permits linking back to company site via a link
  embedded into a logo.
• Exhibit C

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Special Branding Challenges in the New Media
World

• Co-Branded Websites an analysis of the rules
  and policies that
• govern when 2 or more brands appear on a Web
  page.
• Key Issues
• Brand Identity
• Privacy Policy Application
• Customer Ownership
• Data Protection
• Recommendations

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Summary

• Understand Goals of Your Company in Expanding
  Internationally
• Understand Need to Modulate Branding Strategies
  in Different Markets based Upon Brands
  Presence There
• Understand differences in domestic and
  international legal marks protection, leverage
  treaties where applicable
• Be aware of new legal issues tied to new channels
  of distribution and digital content and devise
  strategies to deal with these developments

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Exhibit A Private Label Site
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Exhibit B - Framing
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Exhibit C - Hyperlinking