In my radio chat with Laura Kelly, Slingshot Visionary and Senior Vice President of Product Development at American Express, we talked about the importance of enhancing the lifestyles and workstyles of consumers. Echoing the core philosophy expressed in my book, Slingshot, Laura noted that “At the end of the day it’s about changing the experience—in some ways making it easier and more convenient adding value to that experience in other ways, having the customer get delighted by value in ways they didn’t anticipate—and about creating opportunity for them or ability for them to do things they might not have even thought they wanted to do.”
Now, as an example of American Express’ Slingshot-like innovation, you can see how, in partnership with Walmart stores, they are enhancing the lifestyles of customers with the introduction of the BlueBird card. Via BusinessWeek:
Wal-Mart Stores and American Express are taking a big plunge into the prepaid debit-card market with a new card called Bluebird. The card has many features that are standard in regular bank accounts and seems to have remarkably few fees—which have long been the scourge of prepaid cards. Bluebird is the biggest sign yet that prepaid cards are evolving from a product for the poor and unbanked into a more mass-market offering that competes with regular checking accounts.
[Image via WE Magazine.]
