With the Rio Olympics around the corner, big brands like Citi are gearing up their marketing blitzes. Citi changed its sponsorship messaging from “every step of the way” to “stand for progress” in order to inspire people to “set goals alongside America’s elite athletes.”
Tina Davis, managing director of global sponsorships and marketing for Citi, explained that this is because the national “Every Step of the Way” campaign that the bank first rolled out for the London Games in 2012 and then continued during the Sochi Olympic Winter Games in 2014 didn’t have enough of a tie to the brand.
“I think people need to understand why Citi is a Team USA sponsor,” said Davis. “We like what the Olympics stands for: progress, community and inclusiveness. And at Citi, enabling progress and growth is our business. So this year, we want to enable the overall positioning of ‘progress’ and highlight this empowerment of our program.”
The national campaign features five Olympians, including Gabby Douglas and Nathan Adrian, as well as three Paralympians like Rudy Garcia-Tolson.
The “Stand for Progress” campaign — developed in collaboration with agencies Publicis, Finsbury and Cohn & Wolfe — will come to life across TV commercials, pre-roll ads on YouTube, videos on Vine, promoted posts on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as in-branch posters and signage on ATMs. Citi will also be rolling out Team USA wrapped Citi Bikes in Miami and New York City this week.
https://youtu.be/MAwdd29v8FE?list=PL7807xkyz4XTbnm3VtqKuTlcXQyESWHtm
“What we’ve done this year is, for each medium, we have customized content. For example, instead of trimming a 30-second TV commercial into a 15-second pre-roll, we created videos from scratch,” said Davis.
The U.S. Olympic Committee changed the Rule 40 guidelines for the first time this year to let non-Olympic sponsors run ads starring Olympic athletes during the games. Citi has pushed the endorsement deals even further via the banking category exclusive partnership with NBC, so it’s the only bank that viewers will be seeing on the channel during the Olympics programming.
More in Marketing
Hyve Group buys the Possible conference, and will add a meeting element to it in the future
Hyve Group, which owns such events as ShopTalk and FinTech Meetup, has agreed to purchase Beyond Ordinary Events, the organizing body behind Possible.
Agencies and marketers point to TikTok in the running to win ‘first real social Olympics’
The video platform is a crucial part of paid social plans this summer, say advertisers and agency execs.
Where Kamala Harris and Donald Trump stand on big tech issues
The next U.S. president is going to have a tough job of reining in social media companies’ dominance and power enough to satisfy lawmakers and users, while still encouraging free speech, privacy and innovation.