Citi Ads Focus On Experiences Its Card Can Make Happen

Citi breaks a new national advertising campaign this week for Citi Cards, the world's largest provider of credit cards.

The spots center on the question, "What's your story?," and show how the credit card can enable customers to fund "life experiences." The first spot features a father and son who celebrate the father's 60th birthday by using a Citi Card to travel together. It is the first of three spots with the new theme, says Citi spokesman Mark Rodgers.

This is the first work on Citi Cards from new ad agency Publicis, New York. Citi moved its estimated $150 million global ad account in April to Publicis from Minneapolis-based Fallon. Citi spent about $95 million on U.S. advertising last year, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Global duties were estimated at about $50 million. Previous Citi Cards work from Fallon focused on identity theft, which will continue to be a key message, Rodgers says.

The national campaign is an extension of Citi's global brand campaign, "Let's get it done," that launched in May. The ads make strong use of Citi's symbolic red arc, which the company says is a visual metaphor for connecting human aspirations to realities.

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"This new campaign adds further dimension to Citi's global brand campaign," says Citi CMO Lisa Caputo in a statement. "It's designed to provide a strong communications platform to support our best in class credit card products."

TV spots will run nationally on network and cable programs such as NFL and college football, ESPN, "Grey's Anatomy," "CSI," "Heroes" and "Dancing With the Stars." Print executions will run nationally in publications like ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, People, Time, U.S. News & World Report, Vogue and In Style. "If you think about it, your credit card statement tells a story about the experiences in your life," says Rob Feakins, president of Publicis New York and CCO, Publicis and Publicis Dialog NY, in a statement. "So, the campaign asks the question 'What's your story?' and aims to communicate that a Citi Card is integral to the answer."

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