Citi Olympics: Proud Sponsor of Progress

What business does Citi have sponsoring Team USA? It's a bank, not a sneaker company. So how does this brand connect?*

Our answer came in a simple truth: these athletes, just like business owners, parents, or retirees, are Americans who constantly try to make progress towards their larger goals. And Citi’s goal is supporting American progress, wherever people compete for something better.

Execution Type: Full 360 integration across Broadcast / Print / OOH / Digital Film / Bikes / Event / Website

Role: Concept and Creative Direction for entire campaign with Arturo Aranda 

Team: Jeff Weston (ECD), Everett Ching (AD), Tim Yuen (CW), Keiji Ando (AD), Derek Shevel (CW), Said Farad (AD), Beck Hickey (AD)

Film: Mark Romanek (dir) // Reed Morano (dp)

Photo: Gary Land

Press: New York Times, Creativity, Ad Age, Digiday, Architectural Digest

*Borderline-Should-Be-Fact-But-Many-Brands-Still-See-It-As-Optional-So-I-Have-To-Make-It-An_Opinion Alert: All companies need to ask what’s behind associations with social movements, holidays, sporting events, food festivals — really anything — if they want to make a real connection. Just slapping a logo on a sponsorship? Slap that brand in the face.

While the broadcast spots showed large successes, we used Citi's heavy pre-roll buy to focus on smaller, more-relatable moments for each athlete.