Transcription
I worked on American Express, a fantastic brand, for 15 years. When I look back on it, four things we did made all the difference.
There was a guy at Oglev back in the 60s who said, "Why don't you put 'Member Since' on the card?" That's probably been worth a billion dollars to American Express because nobody wants to cancel. Cuz if you went back to Member Since '25, you'd feel a bit, wouldn't you? Let's be honest.
Okay, those ideas have absolutely massive effects, but poor old marketers aren't allowed to claim the credit for long-term effects. It's a bit like saying to J.K. Rowling, "Yep, you can only have royalties on the first edition of the book."
Business is dominated by people who think it's a game of chess. Whereas in reality, business is a game of poker. I don't know how many of you play poker, but what you'll find is that four or five hands determine basically whether you do well or badly in the whole evening. You pick your moment and every now and then you hit real pay dirt.
It's a point that Jeff Bezos made. He said, "In baseball, you can only hit four. In business, you can hit 500." We aren't spending enough time looking for outsized effects.