Sorry AMEX, Your ‘Social Currency’ isn’t Social.

I love my American Express Charge Card, I really do. I use my Gold Card to pay for pretty much anything I possibly can because of all the associated benefits: Reward Points, warranty extension, amazing customer service, etc. I’ve grown to love the Amex brand and consider myself a loyal and happy customer.

However, this new ad campaign around ‘Social Currency’ bothers the hell out of me. Amex thinks that by building a foursquare app, allowing you to purchase Zynga virtual goods and then spending ‘lots of cash on ads for their ‘Social Currency’ campaign, they are going to get all of us all up in a lather and excited to use more points. The real shame here is how they tout this as a new product or service— when it fact it’s just hype.

True social currency models, those which have the ability to really impact how money moves and effect purchasing power are emerging and consequently, changing the payment landscape. I think it’s a huge disservice for Amex to tout their rebranded Reward Points as being social. Real social payment models like group payments (Social Flights), contingent payments (Grow VC), networked payments (Luxset), dual-party payments (SocialWise) and parallel payments (Amazon’s Flexible Payments) are truly innovative and open up a world of opportunities for startups and companies alike to change not only the way, but also what we are able to purchase.

If Amex really believes that “We live in a social world, isn’t it time we had a social currency to match?” then they need to pony up and consider acquiring a company who’s actually in the social currency space. Sorry guys, the ability to use my Reward Points to buy stuff on Amazon.com and Ticketmaster.com doesn’t count as social.