Citibank: THINK GLOBAL, EAT LOCAL

Credits & Description:

Category: Best Use of Sponsorship

Advertiser: CITIBANK

Product/Service: BANKING AND FINANCE

Agency: TURNER BROADCASTING SYSTEM

Agency: TURNER BROADCASTING SOUTHEAST ASIA

Date of First Appearance: Apr 1 2010

Entrant Company: TURNER BROADCASTING SYSTEM, Atlanta, USA

Entry URL: http://www.cnngo.com/besteats

Sales Director/ Advertising Sales: Kate McVeigh (TURNER BROADCASTING/CNN INTERNATIONAL)

Sales Director/Advertising Sales: Stacey Rabsatt (TURNER BROADCASTING/CNN INTERNATIONAL)

Account Director: Shamila Gopalan (TURNER BROADCASTING/CNN INTERNATIONAL)

Associate Director/ Partner Solutions Group: Julia Leong (TURNER BROADCASTING/CNN INTERNATIONAL)

Vice President/ General Manager CNNGo: Bikram Sohal (TURNER BROADCASTING/CNN INTERNATIONAL)

Editor-in-Chief, CNNGo: Andrew Demaria (TURNER BROADCASTING/CNN INTERNATIONAL)

Sales & Marketing Director, CNNGo: Don Anderson (TURNER BROADCASTING/CNN INTERNATIONAL)

Media placement: Online Interactive - CNNGo.com - 1 April 2010



Insights, Strategy & the Idea

The main objectives for this campaign were to position CITIBANK as the bank with the best privileges and showcase itself as a global bank with regional and local relevance. CITIBANK wanted to reach out to Professionals, Managers, Executives and Businessmen. This was in-line with CNNGo's users who were also global travellers and local affluent. CNNGo saw that cardholders with CITIBANK can now get all of the advantages and recognition enjoyed across the world, offering great benefits at the world's leading hotels, retail shops, restaurants and more. CITIBANK wanted to build their synonymy with dining and secondly retail. Hence CNNGo was a perfect fit for their marketing strategy and brand message. CITIBANK went with the CNNGO sponsorship of Shop and Eat Section and Best Eats as dining and shopping are the key privilege points that CITIBANK wanted to promote to consumers; Best Eats 2010 highlights this push for CITIBANK even more.



Creative Execution

With the Best Eats 2010 Awards, CNNGo established a unique, multi-platform lifestyle awards program to drive wide-spread awareness across Asia of top dining establishments and food, a key connector for CITIBANK and its client base. Assessed by a panel of local experts the quality, atmosphere, professionalism and superb cuisine were criteria for judging. The awards included a series of CNNGo.com articles highlighting the winning restaurants. Each restaurant was entered into CNNGo.com's listings, including a brief description of its highlights. Restaurants were also awarded window decals and certificates, and official letters to recognize their inclusion in the awards. Two Facebook applications were developed; one encouraging users to submit what they felt was the most overlooked restaurant, the other allowing users to select and share their favourites from the CNNGo Best Eats 2010 collection. Virtual and physical branding helped to drive sustained traffic to the awards listings from October to February.



Results and Effectiveness

The campaign saw unique visitors to CITIBANK websites increase 1.9 times and received 1.93 times more new visitors. Visits from referring sites grew by 102%. Overall traffic to the CWP site doubled! Among those exposed to the ad campaign, they were 105% more likely to agree that "CITIBANK offers a good/ exclusive shopping and dining privileges". Most of the image attributes see a positive shift between those who recalled the ads on CNN websites and those who did not recall the ad. There was a 21 point uplift in respondents who felt that they "have a more positive impression of CITIBANK."