If simply saying "thank you" could undo blunders as effectively as it does in Citibank's latest television commercials, there'd be a lot more gratitude going around.
Citibank has infused financial services advertising with some much needed verve -first with its "Live Richly" brand effort and more recently with the popular "Identity Theft" campaign. But the latest round from maverick agency of record Fallon Worldwide is drawing mixed reviews.
The "Thank You" campaign touts Citi's new PremierPass credit-card rewards program. Three 30-second television spots feature awkward moments between two people that are successfully diffused when one of them says, "Thank you." Five print ads round out the initial run that launched mid-July and elaborate on the rewards cardholders can rack up at twice the rate of most programs.
The idea is that people value gratitude, but don't get it very often, including from companies with whom they do business. PremierPass is Citi's way of saying thanks. Fallon's group account director David Sigel says the TV spots are hyperbolic and metaphorical. "The basic message is that a 'thank you' is a refreshing thing and makes you feel better and you're going to feel better as a result of this program," he says.
One spot features a woman confronting her long-time boyfriend about why he hasn't proposed. Struggling to appease her, the man blurts out, "Thank you." She's so stunned that her marriage preoccupations fade. "Nobody's ever said that to me before," she says, blinking incredulously.
In another commercial, a woman at the grocery store offers a "thank you" to recover from an inadvertently rude comment suggesting that a pudgy fellow shopper was pregnant. "We try not to make ads about banks and bank products. We try to make ads about people's lives," Sigel says.
Industry insiders praise the commercials for their high production and entertainment value, and great acting. "I think all advertising needs to do that," says Greg Smith, executive creative director at Portland, ME, ad shop The Via Group, which handles advertising for Banknorth Group.
But unlike Citi's ID-theft campaign, the unexpected twists and humor at the heart of these news ads are "nonsensical and so deliberately weird" that they muddy the product message, says Chris Knopf, chairman and creative director at Mintz & Hoke, agency of record for Connecticut Bank and Trust. The silliness of the ID-theft ads reinforces the idea of stolen identities, but the "Thank You" spots don't connect as well, he says. "The humor feels a little forced to me. ...Of course you always appreciate Fallon and Citi's relentless courage. They take risks and I do applaud that."
The Via Group's Smith agrees that the "Thank You" rationale, though engaging, doesn't bolster Citi's card product and brand. "The notion of 'thank you' being the two most important words you can say is a great concept. I just think the way they did it cheapened that notion."
In response, Fallon's Sigel argues that the commercials were designed to simply introduce PremierPass. Print ads and direct mail provide more detail about the program. Smith and Knopf both say the slick and witty print ads do an excellent job of explaining the new product and bolstering the overall brand. "But it feels like the Citi print and TV were developed by two entirely separate teams," Knopf says.
As with past campaigns, Citi is targeting "balance seekers," for whom money is a means to an end and not an end unto itself. To these people, "there are more important things than money, like family and friends," says Brad Jakeman, Citi's director of global advertising. The campaign aims to extend rewards programs to a broader group. "This rewards program allows everyday people who may not fly a lot to redeem against everyday rewards," Jakeman says.
Print ads portray this with orange quotation marks around different objects-from beach balls to laptops-which echo the orange quotations around the words "thank you" throughout the campaign.
Industry experts wonder whether the campaign's nonsensical nature is evidence that Fallon and Citi are pushing the creative edge to its outer limit. Fallon's Sigel says that was not a goal. "I feel a little bad about criticizing it," says Mintz & Hoke's Knopf. "They're doing something that everybody in this category should do, which is to open up the creative spectrum and address the public as more intelligent viewers."
