Insight: blog

How Shift Paradigm & Amex x Delta Earned Gold at the Magellan Awards

Winning a Gold Magellan Award among hundreds of global entries validates the fact that visionary marketing strategies only succeed when backed by a team ready to work together seamlessly to create the sophisticated marketing & data engines needed to drive exceptional results.

By Cathy Grendus

Published on 30 Oct, 2026

Cleared for Takeoff: How Shift Paradigm & Amex x Delta Earned Gold at the Magellan Awards

When two iconic enterprise brands like American Express and Delta Air Lines team up, expectations are sky-high. Card Members don’t just expect exceptional service, they expect hyper-personalized, relevant experiences at every touchpoint.

The challenge behind our campaign, American Express x Delta: Co-Brand Success Cleared for Takeoff was to take the complex offering of co-branded benefits, spend tiers, and travel rewards, and translate it into a simple and engaging inbox experience that would drive engagement. And today, we’re proud to announce that the effort has been awarded a 2026 Gold Magellan Award by Travel Weekly in the Travel Services – Marketing category.

Cutting Through the Inbox Noise

Modern consumers receive hundreds of promotional emails a week. For co-branded card programs, the biggest operational hurdle isn’t just getting an email opened, it’s proving immediate, tangible value so the Card Member keeps their card top-of-mind and top-of-wallet.

American Express and Delta needed to clearly show Members what they’ve earned, what benefits they could be missing out on, and how close they are to their next travel milestone.

Standard blanket newsletters wouldn’t cut it. The campaign needed to feel less like a generic marketing blast and more like a tailored, timely value summary.

Dynamic Narrative & Data-Driven Personalization

To deliver an inbox experience that felt individually curated, we developed a modular framework built around four core pillars:

The Data-Driven Dashboard: A personalized snapshot giving each Card Member a clear breakdown of their SkyMiles and active card perks.
The Progress Tracker: Engaging visuals to show how close the Card Member was to unlocking their next tier or flight benefit.
Dynamic Gratitude Content: Tailored messaging thanking loyal Card Members based on their specific account history and travel behaviors.
Dynamic Product Modules: Targeted recommendations pointing Card Members toward specific perks they hadn’t yet utilized or perhaps even had known about.

The Results: Sky-High Engagement

By aligning first-class creative design with robust back-end data orchestration, the campaign outperformed industry standards across every KPI.

Campaign Performance Creative Design & Development

Written By Cathy Grendus

Cathy Grendus, VP, Marketing Strategy & Planning at SH/FT leads a passionate team of marketing, strategy, and creative professionals. Her extensive 1:1 direct mail, digital and email marketing expertise - working with clients within various industries (including not-for profit, financial services, CPG, energy, grocery, retail, healthcare, and consumer electronics/technologies), and experiences as a Canadian Marketing Association awards judge, has led to her being a well-respected leader in the industry. Through her true understanding of the potential contention of left brain vs. right brain in the world of marketing – and has resolved to merge the two together at every opportunity in order to provide the most optimal results through insights-driven campaigns.