Vikram Pandit, chief of the troubled Citigroup has reason to smile because the bank won most awards given to financial services providers for excellence in their advertising, collateral and digital media communication. Citi, along with its Citi Smith Barney and Citi Private Bank brands, won a total of 16 awards including four Gold trophies at the 14th Annual Financial Communications Society (FCS) Portfolio Awards here May 15. Other big winners included Ameriprise Financial (eight awards including one Gold) and Merrill Lynch (seven awards including one Gold). Barclays won the Interactive Best In Show award, for its online ad called ‘The Pressure is On’.

For the ‘Ambitions This Big’ print advertisement in Mandarin Chinese, the Multicultural Best In Show Award was presented to BMO Capital Markets.This year’s awards competition attracted more than 370 entries, with Gold, Silver and Bronze trophies awarded to collateral, websites, and advertising in print, television, radio, out-of-home, direct mail, interactive and multimedia categories. Winning entries were received from 34 financial services providers, including investment firms, credit card companies, investment banks, brokerages, mutual funds, insurance companies and commercial banks. At a gala at Manhattan Center Studios in New York City, all the awards were presented. Nearly 500 professionals from the financial services, media, advertising and marketing industries attended the event, which was sponsored by Conde Nast Portfolio, Forbes, Business Week, The New Yorker, The Economist and CNBC.

Categories: Banking and Finance
Tags: advertisement, Annual, Banks, BMO, Chinese, Citi, Citigroup, Credit Card, portfolio awards, television