Dec
12
2006
What’s up with those Citibank Ads?

I don’t normally write about non-online advertising, but I’m glad to see I’m not the only one baffled by the recent Citibank ad campaign. Slate doesn’t get it either. Now that I know it was done by “The Napoleon Dynamite Guy”, I see where the aesthetic comes from. But why would a schlubby, nonspecifically foreign guy make me want to use a different credit card?

I can almost see the fatcat Citibank executive, lighting his cigar with a $100 bill, saying “I’ve got an idea - get me the guy who did that movie the kids like… You know, that, what’s-it-called… Exploding Cannoli or whatever. Have him do our next ad campaign”. Just because something is trendy (or WAS trendy a couple years ago) doesn’t mean it’ll help sell YOUR product.

Incidentally, I’ve had (far too) many credit cards over the years, and Citibank has been, by FAR the most annoying company in terms of junk mail and upsells. Veddy, veddy, veddy, annoying.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 11:11 am and is filed under Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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