American Express is channeling VFX creator Edwin Chung’s surrealist stop-motion video style in its latest digital brand campaign, launching on Monday.

In one spot from the new campaign, a hand plucks a traveler out of her Napa Valley accommodations and straight into a hot air balloon. In another, the hand takes a traveler from a wine cellar into a vineyard picnic, as the brand touts the benefits of Amex Platinum for vacations.

“Content creators hold significant influence with their audiences and this type of collaboration provides a brand like Amex an authentic and engaging way to reach target demographics, with the advantage of leveraging a creator’s unique style to enhance our brand messaging,” says Lauren Dineen-Duarte, VP of communications for American Express Canada. “While creator partnerships have become table stakes for many brands, including those in the finance services vertical, taking partnership a step further into co-creation is still an underutilized resource.”

Dineen-Duarte tells strategy that the key to success is providing a thorough brief with specific messaging guidance, and allowing the creator freedom to develop social-first content aimed to increase brand loyalty and generate high engagement.

Social media is a powerful tool in the success of an overall campaign, especially with the growth of channels like TikTok and Pinterest over the last few years for Amex. It presents different creative and storytelling opportunities than a more TV-led approach.

The brand says it is leaning into the TikTok trend around creative bravery, informed by platform data that 47% of users agree when a brand empowers creators to take charge of the content’s creative direction, it allows them to produce authentic content.

As a company, Dineen-Duarte says it believes in the power of creating social-first content specific to the channels it lives on, as opposed to simply re-purposing a TV ad across all channels and placements, and that the content created in partnership with Edwin Chung is another powerful example of this. The approach is partially driven by an effort to best connect with Gen Z and Millennial audiences.

The campaign themes are geared around travel. This is informed by the latest American Express Global Travel Trends Report, which revealed that Canadians are among the highest travel spenders globally.

“Themes related to travel aspiration resonate well and more importantly provide the opportunity to warm audiences up to the wide breath of travel benefits and rewards offered to Cardmembers by a brand like American Express,” Dineen-Duarte says.

Travel is one of  the brand’s key membership pillars, the others being dining and entertainment, and now is a time when Canadians are highly engaged with travel planning.

North Strategic is providing campaign support.