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Hello and welcome. You're listening to Marketing Matters on the Wharton podcast
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network. It's our weekly podcast where we analyze the latest in advertising,
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marketing, customer behavior, and new product launches. I'm Barbara Khan, the
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Patty and JH Baker Professor of Marketing. and my co-host Americus Reed will not be with us today, but we still
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have a wonderful show because we have a very exciting guest who I'm happy to
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introduce right now. So, our guest is Hannah Kelly, who is the CMO at Resi, which is an American Express company.
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Hello, Hannah. Thank you for being here. >> Hi, thank you for having me. So, you're the CMO or chief marketing
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officer at Resi since 2022, but you've been at American Express for a while,
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right? >> Yes. It is actually my 15-year anniversary this month, >> which is still wild to say out loud. Um,
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but it's it's been an amazing ride. And, uh, the last sort of six years of my
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career with American Express has been dedicated to our dining practice. And that started with um leading the
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acquisition of of resi from the American Express side. So evaluating that opportunity, seeing it through and then
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when we closed joining as a member of the resi leadership team. Um and since then um have been been along for the
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ride. Um, and we just actually acquired a talk at the end of last year, which is
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another table management and hospitality technology provider to some of the most
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fine dining restaurants and and wineries. So, at every turn, it just continues to get exciting. It's a very
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dynamic industry and and job to be a part of. >> So, let's talk a little bit about the
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business model and then get into resi in particular. So American Express I remember is it a credit card? Is it a
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charge card? I mean that whole business was a little bit different than say Mastercard and Visa to start with. Is is
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that right? >> Absolutely. I mean, our job is to think about how to really build a brand around
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what is a piece of plastic now a piece of of metal in all the form factors that we have and really think about being
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more of a lifestyle provider. And that of course comes with financial services and powerful backing, but it comes with
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thinking about where consumers are are spending today and where we think they're going to spend tomorrow and
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building benefits, creating the right sort of partnerships and proprietary technology and offerings to ensure that
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we're there um to incentivize, complement and empower the the lifestyle choices of our base.
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>> So, it's really kind of an interesting business because there's no there there.
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It's kind of like a platform, a network, a collaboration of a lot of different
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things. And now moving into this dining space, you're really talking about the
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experience of dining um in some sense. And that's that's the service you're off
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offering. Correct. >> 100%. And I mean, even when we thought about the the acquisition of of Resi,
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we've had a long-standing heritage predating my tenure um at American Express by many decades within dining.
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Um, I believe one of the first transactions swiped with an American Express card was at a restaurant. Um,
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and in our ambitions as an enterprise to really think about where our consumer spending, how can we add value? And then
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similarly on the network side, making sure that we're looking at merchants and
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providing and connecting them with the diners um and and guests. We need to look at the categories we play in. and
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dining is that in 2024 we saw $87 billion from American Express card members spent in the dining category.
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>> Wow. um which is a tremendous number and there's a real opportunity for us to
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make sure that we're looking at the best restaurants and venues and how do we
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provide technology and tools and with resi and now with talk we we have those capabilities at our disposal and we have
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service offerings beyond just tech which which we can speak about and our job is
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to really make sure that those businesses thrive. They are profitable. they are growing the way that they want
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to grow through telling their stories through meals, through events. Um, and for diners, it's it's connecting them to
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those restaurants, those that they love and and those that they should love. And
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and with that, if you're an American Express card member or an MX merchant, we hope to make it even that much better
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for you. >> Yeah. So, let's so let me just parse that out a little bit because you
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mentioned two different sets of customers. There's the restaurants and then there's the end users. So,
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I I don't know if this is a secret or you can tell us like where what's the
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revenue model? Who pays for the service? Somebody must pay for that. So where does the revenue come from? Does it come
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from the restaurants? Does it come from the end users? So we are we are a SAS business. So both
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resi and and talk are SAS businesses meaning that we sell the resi operating system and talk sells its top um
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operating system to hospitality providers and there's a monthly fee that that goes a part of that. Um so we get
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revenue from those pieces. But when we think about the broader business model it's the actual spend that we're seeing
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come through under the umbrella of American Express which is we're seeing card members continue to spend in
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dining. We hope to continue to capture more than our fair share of of that spend. Um, and by having that sort of
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connectivity to 20,000 plus restaurants with within resi, we have the ability to
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now do that not only from like a SAS fee side of things, but I think more importantly powering up the broader
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ecosystem, which unlocks a lot of broader revenue that you would see through American Express.
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>> Okay. So, let me just unpack what you just said. So some of it's a subscription model, right? Where the
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merchants pay for your software platform and for those services. So that's some
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kind of subscription, but then on top of it, people use the card to charge the meals and so that generates other types
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of revenue for the business. And it's it that's I think that's what you said. Is
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that right? >> That's exactly right. And our job is to think about how that spend is not only
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just self- serving for American Express, but we're sending that to we hope more
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restaurants who might not have had that access to that type of diner before that
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American Express can send through our joint resi talk and American Express marketing ecosystems, but also through
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creating benefits and incentives to get people out to dine. And so just to bring
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that to life, um we launched something called our resi credit benefit which allows for eligible card members from
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American Express to enroll and when they enroll in that benefit when they spend at any resi restaurant, they earn
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whatever dollar amount back right on their check. Um and with that, we've been able to send $19 million in resi
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credit statements um to resi restaurants in New York City alone. um just in in a
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year period of time. So what that allows us to do is yes, we have our SAS fees, we're seeing the spend, but we're also
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hoping that we're driving that incrementality not just for AMX, but to hopefully in create more profitability
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for restaurants who on average make very slim margins um especially in today's
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world with rising rents and and just cost of goods, labor, etc. >> Okay, so let's talk about the fun part
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which is like the marketing. So, one of the things we're seeing in a lot of in a
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lot of businesses, but it makes a lot a lot of sense here in this business is this move towards experiences and um and
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so I think in addition to the service you may provide by making a reservation and the operational side, you're also
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doing a lot of storytelling, a lot of collaborations, a lot of experiences around around different chefs. Can you
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talk a little bit about how that got started and how you form those relationships and how you think about
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that? >> 100%. The the core of resi is is yes, we have an awesome brand, but that that
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brand is really backed by the restaurants and venues on our platform. And we have the privilege of getting to
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help amplify and tell their stories. And that's through edits, that's through
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events, that's through experiences. Uh if you think about just the very premise
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of a restaurant and of a meal, those are micro experiences each and every day. You're going to lunch, you're going to
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dinner with a friend, that is an opportunity for theater, that is an opportunity for service, that is an
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opportunity for human interaction and to be transported to potential different country through a different cuisine
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type. Um to be more specific around the experiences we do, what we like to do is
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twofold. one, what are experiences that we can create that are proprietary to resi in close partnership and within
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ideiation of our restaurant partners and then two really merchandising a lot of events and ideas that our restaurant
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partners are bringing to us. So an example of the latter is uh we are close partners with unapologetic foods. They
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are based in in New York City. Uh Ronnie Mazumar is their their uh CEO. Uh they specialize in Indian cuisine and they
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have grand ambitions not just to serve and provide incredible cuisine of which they've won tons of accolades for. Um
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it's very hard to get in um to their restaurants. They have an amazing service model, but beyond that they
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really want to help break down and demystify and educate the deep heritage, the the different flavors, the the story
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behind Indian cuisine in the Western world. So Ronnie actually approached us and said, "Hey, like I have this crazy
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idea. I would love to be able to take Indian food and unapologetic on tour across the country to help
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expose America to Indian flavors, um have talks, etc." We didn't think it was
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crazy at all. And we actually sponsored that that series. And that's one of those ideas that came to us from a
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restaurant partner. And and that that conversation can happen because of our deep relationship and investment in
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really knowing our partners and and being there as they hope to build out their ambitions for their businesses. on
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on the former which is more of our original programming. We are constantly looking for ways to marry cultural
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zeitgeist and where consumers are interested where they think they we think they should be interested in food
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and match that up with what we are seeing in terms of trends and and upandcomers and names that should be
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known within within dining and hospitality and and one such example is our resi dream team dinner series that
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we launched this year and the premise of that was how could we look at these hotter rising chefs and and operators
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around the country and pull on the the conversations that we see um light the eyes up of our chefs most which are what
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inspired you, what got you into into cooking, what made you want to like sacrifice
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um your career, your time um and really get into this trade and and with that like who would be your dream
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collaborator? Um those those types of conversations were always are always the most fun. So we turned that into a
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series and our resi dream team series was taking the sort of upand cominging stars. We picked five of them. Um one
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such example Yara Herrera in in Queens of of Hellbender. Had a conversation with her. Who did she want to
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collaborate with? She named Martha Stewart was like I don't even know if you could do this. We called Martha's
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team. They were honored, delighted. loved the reasons why Yara wanted to to partner with with um with Martha and
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Martha herself went collaborated on cocktails, a full menu, went for service and with that it brought a really unique
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experience to Yara and to her team in Queens, but also provided an incredibly rewarding once in a-lifetime sort of
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experience for for guests as well. Um so so that is really like the heart and soul and and really we
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>> how did the guests get to be part of that? Like how does that exactly work?
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So I understand that experience. That's awesome actually. And h like how would I
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get to do it? How do you get to do it? >> So we we ticket them exclusively on
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resi. So we partner we create the partnership. We create the event. We produce the event. Um we brand the
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event. We do all of the marketing collateral around it. We put it live on the resi app and web for any guest to to
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go and experience. And then we market that through social on our channels um email and our own channels. And then
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also the chefs and and the talent channel. So in this case Martha as well. >> Wow. So I also saw I mean I guess this
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is old news now but it's one of my favorite shows that you did some kind of sponsorship with the bear. Um I mean
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that show was really interesting in that it showed for this is the fourth season
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I guess all the background and everything you're talking about the whole theater and the fine dining. So it
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does make perfect sense to do some kind of sponsorship with that. How did that all come about?
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>> Yeah, I I think you know food and hospitality is at a really interesting
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point where you're starting to see consumers actually care what's going on
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back of house. Um and and the service model and and and the deeper stories beyond like what dishes should I eat,
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which are the what are the best restaurants? And the fact that a show like The Bear is is in multiple seasons
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and running demonstrates that like the consumer really woke up. And personal hypothesis is you know food is is one of
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those last sort of frontiers that you can digitize everything around it but you can't digitize the taste yet and the
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experience of being served and the people behind it. And my other personal hypothesis is during COVID, I think we
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really felt the gap of not being able to gather and go out to eat. Your phone is
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down. You are looking at the person next to you or across the table from you. And
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there's a real respect for people providing that level of service and and cuisine. So, I think that's really
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exciting to see. With with the bear, we have a broader relationship with American Express and and Disney and
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Hulu. Um so uh that was kind sort of the premise but what is interesting is resi
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was organically mentioned in the show. Um, we have agency partners and chef partners who help to produce and and be
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a part of that that show. And I think that really speaks to as a brand for resi the the sort of clout that we've
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been able to build by authentically providing the right sort of product, providing the right sort of editorial,
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having those partnerships with the restaurants and the operators to to just organically be featured in a show that
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is authentically about the industry. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, that really made sense.
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Like what you're saying is true. They had real chefs on it. It seamlessly worked into the show. It it's all it all
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made perfect sense. So, a lot of what you're talking about here is from the producing the experience side, from the
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restaurant side. But meantime, you must also get all this data from your diners.
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Um, so what do you do with all of that data? >> We do a lot. Um and uh with with the
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data that we have from our diners, we we know that personalization isn't really a
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is it going to be here? Is it going to stay? It is it is core to our business model and it's incumbent upon us to use
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that data to not only help grow our ambitions of of resi and American Express of capturing greater spend and
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and engaging existing card members prospecting net new. It's really about how we can power up hospitality and
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restaurant tours, they don't necessarily have marketing departments. They don't
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necessarily have data scientists sitting on their their so when we look at data,
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we think about it of one, >> when we think of building our restaurant network, where are people dining? What
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are people searching for? How can we make sure that we're looking at yes accolades that we're seeing in the
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market, but paying attention to different cuisine types to surface up restaurants within our platform,
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editorialize them, and even go out and acquire and bring them on onto. >> Uh two is we are looking at how we can
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use data to help create content that's bringing guests into the platform. So
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there's a lot more we can be doing there and where we spend where we are spending
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even greater time but like thinking about the collection. So when you go into the resi app we have an entire
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discover tab and you can actually filter through um different ways of of dining.
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So that could be brunch it could be different you know cuisine types etc. And we're using data to inform the
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algorithm and even the collections that we publicly surface um to search. And then the last piece is like when we want
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to invest in proprietary benefits for American Express card members, we're looking at what are the what are the
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trends and consumer behaviors around what's getting them to spend, what's
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getting them to dine out more and mining that to create the right sort of events
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and experiences that we put out for all guests. But then what do we hold back as
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sort of those scarce assets for um American Express card members to again make it worth your your while to we hope
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get an AMX card and spend a bit more. >> So I mean it makes sense all of this but
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you can also imagine extensions and now that I'm thinking about American Express
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has always been about travel and stuff. It seems like a natural extension would be to go into travel destination not
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just dining but hotels destination and I guess American Express has always been in that business. So does Resi see
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itself going in that direction too or >> Yeah 100%. I mean we have AMX travel
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which is one of the largest travel agencies in in the world with resi and now talk combined we can create a
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similar sort of platform and ecosystem with within dining within MX. That said I think the power is when you string all
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of that together and that's where we spend a lot of time in internally. So, if you land in California from
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Pennsylvania, and we send you an email or a push that says, "Welcome from American Express. Here's where you're
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staying." Imagine a world where we can also include, "Here are places to eat
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based off of your dining behavior, based off of how many people we think you're
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traveling with." There's so much we can do. And um one prime example of how
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we've connected some of these assets actually just launched within the last couple of weeks. our our culinary
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collective. Um, so we've had the Centurion Lounge business for some time. We have believe now 15 locations around
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uh the US and and globally. And what we've done to uplevel that experience and give people maybe to just go to the
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airport without a ticket is we've brought in five of our of our top chefs um that we see coming through in terms
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of demand data like Mike Solomonwami Mashama Bailey um and we've actually had
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them curate a menu that you can experience in any of our of our 15 lounges. So, what's exciting is that
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we've started to scratch the surface on how we can bring our dining and travel
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assets together and I think there's so much more we can do both digitally and
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and in real life to create something special for card members. >> Yeah, it's really interesting. If I look
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at any of the data on where people are spending money, it's definitely on experiences. Like you look in the luxury
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world, they're just not buying as many material things anymore and creating these new kinds of experiences is what
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people are looking for. So I mean you're naturally in that space, but how much of
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it was proactive versus reactive? I mean did you see this coming and say this is
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the way it goes or you just happen to be in the right place at the right time or
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probably a little bit of both. No. Um truly and I give AMX uh credit again predating my my tenure at the company.
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We've been in the the business of experiences um for decades and look at look at the great sponsorships and
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tenure sponsorships we have with the US Open uh with the NBA uh what we are doing with F1. So even at a brand level
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um we've had a dining conc we had a dining concierge program that was really
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about facilitating access that was all phone based predating predating resi uh thinking to the question of where you
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started which is really like what is American Express it is connecting buyers and sellers but the way in which we do
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that is through through experiences and giving people meaning and providing them
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backing and confidence to to do that with resi and and talk those investments were made because we knew that this
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experiential economy was here to stay and especially within dining. So, um I want to give the the the credit where
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credit is due. It's been a long-standing part of just what the premise of membership is and and where we want to
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be able to support the lifestyles of our card members today and tomorrow. >> So, I'm actually interested just in your
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personal life, like what do you do daytoday? I mean, it sounds like you have a pretty exciting job dealing with
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all these people, but like what is a dayto-day in your in your world? >> Uh, one is I wake up and deal with a
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three and a halfyear-old. Um, that, but once I get her out the door, uh, we are thinking a lot about what is the future
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state of of hospitality and how do we build that both in terms of brand and value proposition, which is squarely
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within my camp, partnering closely with our product teams and and greater American Express of of what that could
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look like. Um and and to date we're spending a lot of time on on the integration of of resi and talk and and
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really thinking about what what that will look like in the future and and it's exciting. Um the the second and
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like most exciting part of my job is yes spending time with my team but really spending time with partners. If you just
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listen, you shut up and you listen to operators, front of house staff, go to a restaurant, talk to a host, you get a
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lot of insight around who's coming in their doors, who's not coming in their
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doors, where they're getting stuck on operations, the stories they want to tell, that they have no idea that
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there's a marketing angle there for their business. They have no idea that the technology and ops is is a place
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that they could actually solve some of their business challenges. So that's that's where we spend a ton of time and
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focus is is really trying to understand from a diverse set of of partners and business sizes of different dollar sign
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offerings um on a menu. What is it that they they need? And we're using that to
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kind of inform the the former which is what is that future state of hospitality uh look like? How do we power that up
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through technops? And how do we power up a demand um ecosystem with our guests and our member base to to deliver on
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that? So, if you're doing all that listening, are there any like interesting trends that you're noticing,
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things that like that you've heard that was a surprise to you? >> Uh, oh, it's such a good question. I
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think, um, I think the demand piece is something that that comes up a lot. And, um, how do we continue to tell our story
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and break through media and break through noise to to reach that demand? And if you can imagine like big brands
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who you have on this podcast um like American Express, like Resi, we're competing for share a voice and and
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people's attention. Imagine what a restaurant or a venue is doing when they don't have a marketing department. So,
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if anything, it it kind of puts the onus and like we see a real opportunity to be
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a thought partner there both in providing ideas when we do engage one-on-one of what what's a story angle,
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how you could get that out and then putting that into our own edit and our events and experiences, but also where
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we want to productize that at at some point. So I think just really helping and and that acute need of how do we
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break through this like digital ecosystem as a very small business um is is something that continues to come up
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in in our conversations. >> Oh yeah that's pretty interesting. American Express has always been good
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about helping small businesses. I mean I think you guys invented like Small Business Saturday or something like
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that. did was one of the first projects I worked on as like a little analyst, a very small role in a in a very big
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campaign, but um it's honestly why I love the job that I'm in now. It's with
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AMX, you know, you hear this big you hear this big name. We've we've been
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around for decades and um what has always been sort of my my lifeline to this company has been the genuine desire
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to help small business do more business. I started in um what was called open at
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the time and we had done research and this was back in in 2010 around like the the mindset of a of a small business
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owner and the number one need was we need more business we need more customers and you know I'm just I had
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worked in fashion PR been in the company for for like a month or two and when this report came out I was like that's
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good to know like what are we possibly going to do with this and someone had come up with the idea of let's make a
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holiday um like Black Friday for the big guys like and and call it Small Business
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Saturday. And just seeing the company rally behind that, get the investment. We launched it as a Facebook page and
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and now here it is 15 years later. It's it's amazing. And and a lot of the
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premise and the business challenges we have within hospitality are exactly that. How do we help restaurants thrive?
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>> Yeah. And that's what makes eating out so fun is that they're small businesses.
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You don't want to go to this big conglomerate. you want to go to a local restaurant, a local chef, and it's
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interesting to really focus on that. Well, Hannah, it's been a delight talking to you about your job, about
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resi, about American Express. Thank you so much for joining us today. >> Thank you so much. It's great.
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>> Where can our listeners go to read more about this or maybe to find out more how
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to get involved with this? Where can they go to find out about this? >> Download the Resi app. Um, that's where
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you can directly book, you can discover, um, or resi.com. Um, we have all of our
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edit events and obviously great restaurants to book. So, check us out. >> Yeah, great experiences. Thank you so
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much. Well, that's all we have time for today. We'd like to thank our producers,
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Dion Simkins and Marissa Rena. Thank you all for listening today and we'll be
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back next week. Till then, this has been Marketing Matters on the Wharton Podcast
00:26:44
Network. [Music]