Citi
Background
Citi has partnered with Razorfish for over 15 years (and counting) to drive digital transformation and business growth. For four years, I played a key role on the content team, working on everything from large-scale UX initiatives to campaigns and card positioning.
My Role
The great thing about being dedicated to a single account for four years is that you get to work on many facets of the business. Throughout my time working on the Citi account, I worked on four distinct tracks of work and worked my way up from senior writer to creative lead. As a lead, I managed junior writers, reviewed all deliverables, provided feedback, and worked directly with clients to help prioritize work and outline strategic growth opportunities.
I’ve selected key projects across each track of work to show the breadth and depth of my experience on the account.
RETAIL SERVICES
Citi Retail Services is one of the largest providers of private-label and co-brand credit cards nationally. At Razorfish, we created a white-label card servicing platform that scales and adapts to each brands’ needs while retaining shared components and information architecture to allow for maximum scalability.
Seamless handoff from brand to bank
Each brand's servicing platform had to feel like an extension of the brand while integrating card-specific benefits like rewards, digital cards, and streamlined point-of-sale payments. We managed each brand's library of elements through a shared design system called Fusion, which allowed us to maintain consistency while tracking partner deltas through a robust set of developer documentation.
Aligning UX and CX
Call center agents were stuck using archaic software (with upwards of eight different windows open at a time) to help users solve simple payment-related problems. We solved that by integrating the call center experience into the front-end user experience. So, agents and customers would see the same thing during calls.
With agents and customers sharing the same view, we were able to reduce wait times, shorten call durations, and increase the frequency of payments over the phone. This shared view also presented an opportunity for less tech-savvy customers to be walked through the experience so they could self-serve in the future.
When it comes to paying your credit card bill online, you want things to be as straightforward as possible, but sometimes you need assistance over the phone. After spending years improving the customer experience for payments online, it was time to improve the call center experience for our customers. The call center experience across the portfolio of brands was unilaterally poor, but this created an opportunity to improve the experience for call center agents and customers for all brands.
We introduced “next best actions” for call center agents to help prioritize business objectives like increasing paperless statements and billing enrollment, increasing autopay enrollments and adding authorized users. Each “next best action” was introduced at the optimal time in the experience to maximize effectiveness and create a logical connection to benefit for customers.
CAMPAIGNS
Citi’s new High-Yield Checking Account is a bit of a unicorn in the banking industry — it’s a checking account that earns substantial interest with no ATM fees. To introduce this account to a new generation of customers, we had to demonstrate that they've been getting a raw deal.
Everyone is sick of being nickel and dimed with hidden fees and changes. Fees to access your own money from an ATM, “convenience fees” to print a concert ticket, fees to choose your seat on an airplane, and don’t even get me started on guac being extra. Citi’s new checking account gets rid of the egregious fees and makes it easy to earn interest on your everyday spending account.
That’s Ridiculous
Performance Banner Ads
Landing Page
ACQUISITIONS
Cards Tailored For Every Lifestyle
As senior writer on the acquisitions team, I focused on the storytelling, structure, and narrative flow for each sign-up page. These campaign-agnostic pages focused on key benefits to boost conversions, using insights from review sites like NerdWallet to highlight competitive features. From deal seekers to travel junkies and credit newbies — each page is designed to appeal to a specific person and their lifestyle.
COSTCO: For Costco members, it’s not just about buying in bulk or endless options—it’s about the thrill of a good deal. So, we kept it real. If a “Costco-sized deal” is your kind of thing, then this is your card.
AMERICAN AIRLINES: With so many travel cards offering flashy bonuses and perks, this one set itself apart by rewarding everyday purchases. We leaned into the name “MileUp,” turning it into a verb to show how you can “MileUp” every purchase to get closer to your dream vacation.
PRIVATE LABEL: Everyone starts somewhere. For those with no credit or bad credit, this card helps you build it up. Instead of focusing on the negatives like the competition, we highlighted how this card puts you on the path to reaching your financial goals.
POSITIONING
Citi had just spent months redesigning and repositioning its Citi Premier card as an airline-agnostic travel card with a new point structure. Then Covid hit, travel halted and so did the launch of the new Citi premier card.
Citi tapped us to help with a strategic repositioning (of the repositioning) so they could launch the new card in unprecedented times. We had to find a way to introduce a travel card in unprecedented times when people simply weren’t traveling.
This is the card for life optimizers. We will all travel again, but until then, the Citi Premier card makes it easy to earn points on everyday purchases so can take the trip you’ve been dreaming of when you’re ready. The premier card isn’t a travel card, it’s a card for pragmatists. People you want to make the most of every moment and every purchase.
Citi Premier
Positioning Statement
Citi Premier is the card for life optimizers. It rewards you for both everyday purchases and getaways. So you can elevate every moment.
With the revised positioning locked, our next step was to bring it to life with a campaign strategy and clear digital and print executions. Given the global climate, we avoided images of crowds, focusing instead on intimate moments with family and friends that encouraged card spending and connection.
Bringing It to Life
