https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fncbKmFQ-hk
Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer and star of the runaway hit musical Hamilton, is the star of the latest American Express ad about neighborhoods. Via Adweek:
Odds are, to make your dreams come true, you’ll need some help—both in terms of loyal friends and a credit card or two.
In a new ad starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the pop culture phenomenon Hamilton, American Express persuasively makes the case its financial services are a friendly hand supporting you on the road to success.
Two edits of the commercial created by agency mcgarrybowen—a 60-second spot and a 30-second version—both focus on Miranda’s connection to Washington Heights, the neighborhood in New York City where he grew up and now lives.
In the ad, he waxes philosophical while visiting actual businesses and locales notable to his life and career. There’s Dichter Pharmacy, where he picks up coffee on the way to the local barbershop, where he cracks jokes with friends.
There’s a visit to Hunter College Elementary School on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where he actually substitute-taught for a year, in 2002 (and, some years before, was a student). And naturally, there’s a visit to the Richard Rogers Theater, on West 46th Street, where Hamilton has enjoyed its smash Broadway run since 2015.