Lounging Around
American Express may be doing a little more entertaining this year.
The firm will decide by March whether to expand a pilot program to put upscale lounges in shopping malls.
Its first American Express Members Lounge, which opened in November in the Mall at Short Hills in New Jersey, received a strong reception.
The spa-style retreat, located in the center of the mall, hosted more than 30,000 shoppers in its first four weeks, averaging 1,900 a day. Its biggest day saw 2,400 visitors. About 20% were repeat visitors.
The venue offers a quiet place for cardholders to sit down. They are treated to coffee or cocoa, and can check e-mail or charge an iPod or cell phone. Several desks with phone hotlines and catalogs let cardholders redeem Membership Rewards points. Mall merchants like Nieman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s host demonstrations.
“We wanted it to be a respite from the holiday bustle,” says Ralph Andretta, AmEx’s senior vice president of membership rewards and partnerships.
Prior to the holidays at least $200,000 worth of AmEx gift cards were sold there, although its only holiday-related amenity has been free gift-wrapping.
After the lounge closes this month, AmEx will analyze traffic and sales, as well as shopper comments to decide whether to build more lounges. The perk is ideal for the holidays, but the company will consider constructing similar areas in other seasons, too.
The lounge has also been a boon for recruiting new customers. Non-cardholders can get a day pass after filling out an application for an account. A kiosk approves applicants in one minute, and staffers issue the new card in five minutes. Andretta declined to comment on the number of new cardmembers, or the costs for the lounge.
The idea arose last summer, during a swanky evening focus group session with AmEx cardholders, held in a Manhattan loft.
“We had asked a few of our agencies to get some cutting-edge card members together and ask what would wow them,” Andretta recounts. “This was borne out of that research.”
To design the lounge, AmEx and its agencies, including relationship marketing shop Digitas, looked at day spas.
“We didn’t want it to be too businesslike, like an airport lounge, or too commercial,” Andretta says.
AmEx has hosted a number of its marketing partners who are interested in their own pop-up perks.
“This one little lounge in a nice part of New Jersey has generated an amazing amount of buzz,” Andretta says.
