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I’ve always thought AMEX had amazing customer service, but now I’m a customer evangelist. Susan, President of American Express OPEN (Small Business division), made an empassioned speech at the Inc. 500 Conference in Chicago and had all of the Inc. 500 CEOs reach under their chairs and get the iPhone holder for all of us to claim our free iPhones at the AMEX booth after her speech.

Several other entrepreneurs and I were trying to guess who foot the bill for 500 iPhones (retail value of $400 each x 500 = $200,000). AMEX, Apple, and AT&T were the 3 partners on it with AMEX being the clear leader in sponsoring the Inc. 500 Conference. Regardless, the gift was pure business / marketing genius. I’ve told dozens of business leaders back in Portland that this gift was one of the highlights of the event, and then I’ve shown off how amazing the iPhone truly is.

Until I had a chance to play around with an iPhone, I thought it was just a glorified Blackberry. But, now I realize how wrong my perceptions were. The iPhone is truly innovative and intuitive in how interactive and high-quality the photo albums are, movies are beautiful on it, and of course music is amazing on it. I probably won’t use it as a phone until someone cracks the code for using it with Verizon service, but I love my iPhone and I love American Express.

This article by Cory Treffiletti was completely relevant to yesterday’s blog post on the aQuantive purchase by Microsoft. The article is also inspiring to really drive unique innovation that disrupts the competition and absolutely delights customers.

Do You ‘Think Different’?
By Cory Treffiletti

Back in the late ’90s, Apple launched an elegant campaign which asked the audience to “Think Different.” This omnipresent campaign was beautiful in its simplicity and represents one of my favorite ad campaigns of all time purely for the message that it sent — that ingenuity and creativity are what is rewarded in life.

Concurrently, in the late ’90s we witnessed the rapid expansion of the Internet to become an everyday tool for the average consumer; along with this growth came a requirement for companies and brands to also “Think Different.”

Brands were tasked to come up with new ways of reaching their audience in this entirely new medium. They tested new strategies and they piled dollars on top of dollars to wield the strength of the banner bandwagon as they developed additional new ways for spreading their brand-messages to the consumer. The bandwagon created a bubble and the bubble eventually burst, but those who were passionate and were personally invested in the medium continued to evolve and develop new strategies for harnessing the power of the digital populace. All the while, these people were, consciously or not, attempting to “Think Different.”

Read the full article on MediaPost and post a comment on their blog >>

Aside from the New Music Tuesday emails that are clear, concise and make me want to explore some music that I love more, they are bundling the video offerings as well. This edition is a great example of the new cross channel marketing that we are seeing with the network TV stations adding video content to the library.

Towards the end of this below email you will see the FREE download for the new Pilot of Conviction. I don’t watch alot of new TV now that I have had TIVO for a few years, but with my new video iPod, I can take content on the go. I always thought “Why would I ever watch a video on a screen that small?” but this last week as I was boarding a flight to NYC (Red Eye) I looked at my iPod and noticed that I had added that new Pilot episode. So I sat back and watched it. To get to the end of the story quick, I LOVED It. I was sucked in by this little machine and can’t wait for more video content on my iPod. It might even make me want to pay for TV shows on this device. If you have not already downloaded your copy from Itunes, get over there today. You will not be disapointed.

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