Citigroup's Brand Police

Make Cross-Media
Campaigns More Effective
CASE SUMMARY
 Citigroup's Brand Police Officer, Steve Cone helps marketers avoid the three
most common mistakes,
 Integrate online and offline campaigns and figure out how to globalize
creative.
 Want to integrate your campaigns across TV, radio, online, print, direct and
out-of-home? "It's integrated marketing, and it's not something that is done
often or well," says Steve Cone, Managing Director of Ad & Brand Management
for Citigroup Global Wealth Management.
 This November, Cone was a headline speaker at Ad:Tech New York.
Tips on making Cross-Media Campaigns
More Effective
 Tip #1. "Brand police" microsite
 Cone and his team run a microsite that allows marketers of the Citigroup
brand to review the branding "rules.“
 Necessary to review the vast majority of its major promotions to be sure that
the message is correct and that the visuals are correct and hopefully
compelling.
 The most common errors Cone sees in marketing materials are:
 Type Error
 Promotion is void of personality
 No compelling deadline or reason to respond.
Tip #2. Inject personality into campaigns

 it's important to inject personality, with a spokesperson or a slogan or a logo

 many people are under the false notion that consumers buy from companies,
not people
 Financial services companies run the risk of being seen as nothing more than
big business trying to make a buck.
 While some within the company believe that it's dangerous to tout a
particular "face" of the company, when that person might not necessarily
remain forever
Tip #3. Avoid "homogenized Kodak
moments"

 Recent surveys have found that, particularly in financial services, consumers

are bored with advertising -- so bored that "they tune out everybody," Cone
says.
 It behooves us to create advertising that's newsworthy and dramatic which is
harder to do today, but more important than ever
 The popular TV and print commercials generated attention and drove
consumers to a website, where they could find answers if they thought they
were a victim.
Tip #4. Internet versus TV

 That campaign was indicative of an interesting fact that people tend to

forget, which is that TV viewership has remained steady all these years and
that the average hours an American spends watching TV is still beyond what
people spend online.
 Citigroup's Smith Barney has had success with a website that allows visitors to
see the position, in real-time, of the stocks and bonds that they own.
Tip #5. Keep creative as same as possible
around the globe
 Messaging and visuals for brand messages in a global campaign can be the
same 99% of the time, Cone says. "It's over-hyped that there are cultural
challenges. At least in financial services, everyone in the world wants to have
a better life, and we're trying to help them achieve that financial security.“
 Cone says it's more important for the brand to have consistency and stability
across the world. Cone makes sure that "our brand family is not misused, and
that the logos are always done correctly across the board."