Robbie Thain
Founder, CEO
AI-generated illustrative image. Not an official campaign image.
American Express’s results raise a practical question for event teams: how do staffing, booth flow, and reporting connect participation to acquisition?
On 2026-10-23, American Express reported 3.1 million new cards in its Q3 2026 earnings call. Management also reported 99% U.S. Consumer Platinum spend retention one year after the refresh. Those results provide a counterweight to eMarketer’s analysis questioning whether costly experiences are delivering the cardholder acquisition the company needs.
For CPG and beverage marketers, the issue is not whether live experiences attract attention. It is whether the evidence tracks the commercial outcome assigned to the experience. An acquisition brief needs an acquisition answer.
According to eMarketer, American Express’s quarterly cardholder additions averaged 1.3 million in each of the four quarters after the Platinum refresh. The outlet compares that with 1.5 million per quarter before the refresh. Its analysis challenges the relationship between a premium experience proposition and new-customer growth.
The same article reports Q3 Card Member Services spending of $2 billion, up 36% year over year. It also reports that card-member rewards spending rose 10% and marketing spending increased 11%. Those figures explain why the acquisition question deserves attention.
American Express’s earnings-call transcript supplies a different part of the picture. The company said 76% of new accounts were on fee-paying products. Management attributed higher marketing expense to additional customer-acquisition investment following strong first-half performance.
Associated Press coverage adds another retention indicator. It reports that American Express raised the Platinum annual fee from $695 to $895 while adding benefits. The company said nearly all customers moved to the higher-fee card had kept it.
Read these measures separately. The quarterly comparison is eMarketer’s reported analysis, and neither it nor the company-wide results isolate the effect of experiential rewards. Card additions and new cards are not automatically interchangeable; spend retention is different from customer retention. Card Member Services is not an event-only budget, and this financial-services case is not direct evidence of CPG activation performance.
At Makai, our view is straightforward: welcome people warmly and give the interaction a clear purpose. Aloha belongs in how an experience feels. Discipline belongs in how the business evaluates it.
We create experiential programs that connect emotion with action through creativity, strategy, and data. Our work includes hands-on brand moments and product trials. The aim is not to remove the feeling from an experience, but to connect that feeling with a meaningful business outcome.
For a beverage or snack brand, that means being precise about the assignment. A product launch may prioritize trial. A retail demonstration may focus on purchase. A trade show activation may need qualified leads that support a sales pipeline.
Those are related objectives rather than interchangeable results. A trial should not quietly become a customer acquisition in the recap. A busy booth should not become a qualified pipeline simply because visitors scanned a code. Positive reactions belong in the report without standing in for completed commercial actions.
Our reporting covers reach, trials, leads, and sales. We track awareness, engagement, and conversion to guide campaign optimization. That separation matters when a marketing leader needs to explain Return on Investment (ROI) rather than present a collection of favorable activity metrics.
We also build festival zones and pop-ups that turn audiences into participants while our crews track reach and response. The lesson we draw for this debate is about measurement purpose: the emotional ambition and the commercial brief need to stay connected.
An experience can have a legitimate relationship-building objective. It can also have an acquisition objective. Our stance is that the team should name the objective before production begins and judge the result against that assignment.
The operational response we recommend is not simply adding more reporting after the event. It is carrying the intended outcome into staffing and the physical experience from the start.
If trial is the priority, the staff brief should center on the product interaction and how trial will be recorded. If qualified leads are the priority, the brief should also make clear what qualifies a lead and what happens after the conversation.
That is a distinction in the work itself. Starting a conversation and establishing a relevant next step are different tasks. Our retail demonstrations use trained brand ambassadors to drive in-store sales through real conversations and product trials. The interaction has a commercial purpose without needing to feel like a sales interrogation.
For trade show teams, we recommend staffing and training around the intended response. A report should reflect the job staff were actually assigned to perform. A team briefed only to distribute samples should not later be judged as though its assignment was to qualify buyers.
An acquisition objective also belongs in the space plan. We recommend distinguishing the product interaction from the commercial next step. The plan should account for both rather than assuming a visitor will move naturally from one to the other.
Makai plans and manages trade show spaces that attract attention and start conversations. For us, giving each booth interaction a clear job connects that design work with the intended customer response. The footprint should serve the brief rather than merely accommodate the display.
A useful planning review separates several questions:
These are design questions rather than evidence that a particular layout will produce acquisition. Their purpose is to make the commercial task visible before the team commits to production.
For permits and logistics, our recommendation is to keep the operating plan connected to the commercial objective. A proposed change in footprint belongs in that planning discussion. It should not be treated as a reporting fix after the experience has been built.
Makai’s integrated services span permitting through CRM reporting. Our storage and logistics work covers sampling product and event gear, including shipping and nationwide delivery coordination. These capabilities sit alongside the consumer-facing experience rather than outside its execution plan.
The planning implication is practical: the space and materials should support the activity being measured. Adding an acquisition objective late should trigger a review of the field plan. It should not merely change the label on the final presentation.
We integrate QR codes and mobile technology with physical activations across retail, event, and tour experiences. That connection supports a more complete view of participation. Our position is that the recorded action still needs a clear meaning in the campaign’s measurement plan.
A code interaction should be reported as that action unless the evidence supports a further outcome. A lead should meet the campaign’s agreed commercial definition. A purchase belongs in a sales measure. Keeping those distinctions visible gives marketing and sales a clearer basis for discussing performance.
The same principle applies to connecting in-store participation with retail sell-through. The report should distinguish the live interaction from the purchase outcome it is intended to support. That lets the team evaluate the connection instead of assuming it.
For a campaign designed to acquire customers, we recommend reporting participation and acquisition separately. For a retention campaign, the relationship objective should remain visible. Neither objective needs to borrow the other’s results to justify its existence.
Before scaling a high-cost activation, compare its results with a suitable baseline or alternative investment. That is a practical recommendation rather than a universal formula. The comparison should fit the outcome the campaign was built to produce.
The decision is more useful when it separates three parts of the review: what the team intended, what happened in the field, and what commercial result was documented. That approach leaves room for an experience to create value without treating every favorable signal as acquisition.
Makai’s position is not that every live moment must close a sale on the spot. It is that carefully executed face-to-face marketing should have a measurable business purpose. The production brief and the performance review should describe the same assignment.
As a CMO or VP of marketing, will your next activation report answer the question raised by American Express’s 2026-10-23 results: did participation lead to new customers?
Field marketing managers own daily activation execution; with Makai managing the experience, the focus is participation and measurable consumer response. Makai creates experiential campaigns and trade show activations that turn brief consumer interactions into qualified leads for premium CPG brands.
30 Years Experiential & Retail Activation Partner for CPG & Beverage Brands | Multi-Market Demos, Roadshows & Costco/Club Programs That Actually Sell
