The Situation
Citi was yet another huge, anonymous financial institution with, frankly, mostly commoditized products. Lack of relevance was Citi’s biggest barrier to selling (and cross-selling) more products and services. Consumer research and Simmons modeling uncovered a proprietary target market: the Balance Seekers - a vastly under-served, misunderstood and huge financial service audience - Americans who did not objectify money.
 
The Idea: 
Directly assault the category notion that financial success = massive wealth. Tap into true customer aspirations: simply to live happily within their means. In other words, Live richly.
 
The Results:
A multi-year campaign that resulted in huge increases in key brand health measures such as relevance and differentiation along with unprecedented gains across key business metrics in just the first six weeks of launch: +150% increase in retail account openings, 30% lift in card acquisition, 33% increase in new card product acquisition and an overall 169% increase in incremental revenue due to cross-sell.

Campaign executions also achieved cultural breakthrough status with mentions on Oprah, Fox News Live, NBC Today Show, CNN Lou Dobbs, Good Morning America, and in USA Today. It was also one of the most awarded multi-year campaigns, winning multiple Effie’s, an Emmy, Media Plan of the year, Hispanic Plan of The Year, Campaign of the year, a Gold Kelly, a Grand Midas, 5 Gold Midas, 4 Silver Midas, 19 Finalist status, and 2 shortlist mentions, awards at the One Show and British Design & Art Direction, to name a few.