“Where’s the Relevancy of a Weather Balloon in Today’s Advertising?”

OK I have to get something off my chest. I sometimes find a good ad campaign that is relevant and has great messaging and branding (Dodge Journey “search engine for the road”, Johnson & Johnson “Baby in Sink” and the occasional E-Trade ad) but, typically I find a lot of bad advertising concepts that I just roll my eyes or gouge them out like the new Chase “OoooH Yeah” Money Back ads or Wendy’s ever revolving ad campaigns with no cohesiveness to the brand but I wont bore you with all my tirades (visit Todd Ebert’s blog on “Annoying Advertising” as he points out many faults in ad campaigns)

I do have a bone to pick with Citi Bank. Seriously lets change it up guys. After almost a year (ok 9 months) on television, the Citi Bank “Weather Balloon” commercial has been showing just how irrelevant they are with people using their card to get points for useless crap. The ad is so lame - who in the hell buys a weather balloon (unless you’re a scientist, teacher or lame commercial concept) with credit card points? Does it truly exist in their catalog or did they get a gift card to the Discovery Store?

Let's talk to my point of relevancy for this ad and how using credit card points to get a weather balloon is relevant to the average consumer? I dont think it is and this ad is in heavy rotation. I mean "pull on the heartstrings a little" to use points on items that everyday consumers may want like a power tool, dress, jacket, stereo, gift cards, vacations or buy Mom an airline ticket to see her grandchild (that's what I did). Hell use the points to pay down your balance or see if your card allows for donating your points to a charity. Just be relevant.



Also, a BIG pet peeve in the ad is when the guy said, "You bought a weather balloon with points!" The main character says "Yes I did" and they let the balloon go. How staged can Citi Bank get? Nobody would exclaim that to a group. In reality, they would just figure their friend got the balloon, and they'd not be stating the obvious. As in having an itchy feeling in your booty and needing a certain ointment to alleviate the symptoms. Its not like you would exclaim “Hey, I just bought Preparation H for my hemorrhoids with credit card points!” Would you?

After tracking the balloon with a GPS I find it difficult to believe that the camera came down close enough to find after it crash-landed. Plus the images shown seem to be of above the atmosphere. Like you're viewing the Earth from space.

That seems kind of unlikely since the balloon would seemingly pop before it could leave the atmosphere, or that the box and the camera would be burned/melted/destroyed on returning through the atmosphere.

But seriously, I can't imagine anyone over the age of 12 being so enthralled in such a scientific toy. I'm sure these men aren't scientists or weather guys but possibly some geek on the creative team that always wanted a weather balloon.