I love these offers, or at least I respect them a whole ton for what they do to me…which is make me consider them seriously. Unlike most marketing which gets the quick delete or toss in the trash, whenever I get these ‘Going Once’ deals from Amex, something interesting happens.

I read them, I visit the site(s), I consider making big ticket impulse purchases and putting them on my Amex card. I haven’t purchased anything *yet*, but I come closer to doing so every time I get one of these deals in the mail.

Much like Woot.com, these promos tempt you with limited time, limited quantity, exclusive price offers for everything from deeply discounted flat panel tvs, to trips overseas. The websites, the direct mail pieces, and even the email marketing is all beautifully executed. The work brilliantly to get me dreaming every time, which is more than I can say for 99.9995% of the other marketing that floods into my line of sight every day.

Maybe I am jaded by so much ineffective marketing out there, and bored with all of offers that are just white noise, or maybe Amex just has devised the perfect formula on these campaigns by combining exclusivity, urgency, beauty, and of course, the ability to finance it with the little piece of Amex branded plastic that they know is just sitting in my wallet, begging to be used.

Hey, I damn near bought a trip to Tuscany today. On a whim. That says a lot about the effectiveness of this stuff.

Popularity: 1% [?]