What are you seeing in terms of consumer trends at American Express?
Clearly, one of the most important trends that we’ve seen in marketing is this move from monologue to dialog. The expectation among consumers now is that they will be listened to. I’m finding that to be an interesting tension point for marketers. If you are going to enter a conversation, you no longer get to control everything. The consumer may say something on a website, or do a YouTube video, and we don’t have full control over that. Yet even in this open environment, as the marketer, you are still 100% responsible for the result. That created a lot of fear and anxiety at first. You want to say, “Well, that’s not fair.” Fair or not, it’s reality. Twenty years ago, we were in control, or thought we were. Today we know we’re not, but we’re still accountable. It’s getting to a point of greater acceptance — not that the anxiety went away entirely, but there is more acceptance. When you start to look at it that way, it starts to provoke some interesting conversations, interesting thought
