While working at R/GA with American Express, we were challenged to revitalize a beloved brand activation—Shop Small—and make it relevant to Gen Z. The program had been around for over 15 years and was highly successful in incentivizing customers to support local businesses. It held an important place in AMEX’s brand mission, especially as the card of choice for many small business owners. However, the program needed a refresh, and AMEX wanted to ensure it could be ushered into a new generation by building hype and habits that would encourage younger consumers to shop small.

Through extensive research—cultural, company, competitive, and customer—we identified a few key insights:

• Gen Z uses social platforms like TikTok for discovery.

• They want to shop small but often feel they can’t afford to or don’t know where to focus their energy.

• They love feeling like influencers, introducing friends to their favorite spots and discoveries—word-of-mouth on social is critical.

Using these insights, we launched a design sprint. We concepted, held workshops with our clients to iterate on ideas, created mockups to visualize the solutions, and ultimately landed on a clear direction:

Shop Small would evolve into a new, gamified program and platform that connects values-driven shoppers through advocacy, discovery, and more personal ways to engage with the communities they care about. The experience would live primarily on mobile, connecting seamlessly to social platforms and encouraging the behaviors we wanted to reinforce—sharing, recommending, and supporting small businesses in ways that feel natural and rewarding to Gen Z.

Below are just snipits pulled as examples of the type of thinking and work we did. Neither project is still live, as it was a few years ago, and none of these are finalized documents. Do not share externally.