American Express touts its Members Project

American Express just posted this commercial to its "Members Project" channel on YouTube. It's basically a retrospective of clips from spots, using a lot of editing creativity, by AmEx commercial endorsers, including some footage from a spokesperson gig that Jim Henson did back in the day. It ties back into the "Members Project"—in which AmEx cardmembers suggest, and vote on, worthy initiatives to get $2.5 million in funding from American Express. Via Ogilvy.

Andy Roddick's mojo is a caveman

So in preparation for the upcoming ABC series, Cavemen, that leftist rag the Village Voice has devoted many column inches to an interview with the actor—who, as we've said repeatedly, is not in the Geico spots—who will play the starring caveman in the series. His name is Nick Kroll, he compared the early attempts at putting on his caveman makeup to "rubbing fiberglass on my face" and his commercial claim to fame was playing Andy Roddick's mojo in the ill-fated American Express campaign from a few years back. Above, is the second "Mojo" spot, after Roddick had been bounced out of the U.S. Open in the first round. (The first one isn't posted anywhere I could find.) I guess maybe we could call this whole caveman/mojo thing six degrees of David Ogilvy.

Amex membership has its philanthropies

In what looks to be a combination of social networking, philanthropy and credit card marketing, American Express sent out emails to cardmembers last week promoting its "Members Project" which it started in mid-May; the brand also broke a commercial, directed by and featuring Martin Scorsese, and some other Amex spokespeople, over the weekend. The commercial has that same grating humor from other Amex spots; the humor seems too proud of its tongue-in-cheekness to ultimately be very amusing. Too bad, because the "Members Project" concept is really cool. Here's how it works: people submit ideas for charitable projects to the site; they can also discuss and comment on some of the project ideas submitted. Even registering contributes a $1 to the project, with the money going to the project that wins, by user vote, in July. If you've got a great, philanthropic idea, you have until June 17 to submit it. Get crackin'.