With the current state of our economy, consumers often turn to large superstores or department stores for their shopping needs. With the holiday season approaching last fall, American Express OPEN wanted to do something for the small, independently owned local businesses. Large stores have “Black Friday” and internet retailers have “Cyber Monday”. American Express worked with Digitas and Crispin Porter + Bogusky to launch the “Small Business Saturday” campaign.

Small businesses stimulate local economies and create jobs, but they were hit hard by the recession and needed more demand for their products and services. Digitas chose to use Facebook to make “Small Business Saturday” come to life. Over a million people joined the movement and helped spread the word by “liking” Small Business Saturday on Facebook and nearly 30,000 tweets were sent using the hashtags #smallbusinesssaturday and #smallbizsaturday.

The online community grew at an incredible rate, Social networking tools empowered consumers to rally their friends, gush about their favorite local businesses and take advantage of special “Shop Small” credits. Through Facebook, AMEX cardholders could register to receive $25 for spending $25 at small businesses the day of the event. To promote small businesses, owners received access to sophisticated marketing tools, advice, and free geo-targeted advertising. Small businesses not only utilized the tools provided, they created their own signs, sales, even commercials. And when November 27th finally came, people shopped and they shopped a lot. Small businesses saw a significant increase, while small retailers that accept AMEX saw a 28% increase. This was just the beginning; after all, ads come and go, but holidays are forever.

This groundbreaking campaign created the first-ever holiday dedicated to supporting small businesses was receiving national exposure. Many news outlets from around the country were covering the event. Elected officials declared November 27, 2010 “Small Business Saturday.” Governors of Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Utah and the Mayors of Boston, MA; Boulder, CO; Lincoln, NE; New York City; Phoenix, AZ and Topeka, KS helped spread the word.

This campaign so successful because it was something new and supported small businesses around the country. Digitas and Crispin were honored at the Cannes Lions Internal Festival of Creativity this June in multiple categories: Media Lions Shortlist-Best Use of Integrated Media, Promo & Activation Lions Shortlist- Financial Products & Services, Cyber Lions Shortlist- Community Applications and PR Lions Shortlist- Corporate Responsibility.

At this year’s CLIO Awards, Digitas and Crispin took home the Grand CLIO in the Content and Contact category. Digitas was honored with the first ever CLIO Special Award for Facebook Integrated Media and they also won the Gold CLIO for Interactive Social Media.

UPDATE: This campaign also shortlisted in the Best Use of Integrated Media, Financial Products and Services, Community Applications and Corporate Responsibility categories at this year’s Cannes Awards.