More mindless marketing

The "Bad" - capturing interest, raising expectations and then not delivering

I know this isn't a B2B example but I had to share it given my last post on mindless marketing. I got this email from CitiBank last week.

The subject line caught my attention…"A Message from Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citi" and got me to open the email which I rarely do.  It must be important if the CEO is sending it to me.

The first sentence kept me interested …"I want you to be among the first to know about the bold steps we are taking at Citi to be the premier, global, fully integrated financial services firm."   Wow, this really must be good stuff to follow.  I can't wait to hear what bold things they are going to do for me the customer!

Oooooops, no bold steps, just their lame marketing drivel …  "Our objective is to create for our customers an experience in which services are seamless, payments and transfers effortless, and distances meaningless."  Truly inspirational stuff ;)  I'm so happy to be a customer of a company that delivers bold services like seamless payments and transfers! 

Seriously, what was the Citi email marketing team thinking when they put this together?  Why in the world would they use their precious CEO equity to send this type of lame message?  What did they want me to take away from this?  Where are the calls to action?  Even assuming they thought this was a meaningful customer communication, why waste the opportunity to take me to a landing page with some cross-sell / upsell offers?  Or, at the very least a customer feedback survey on what services I'd like more info on.  So instead of the intended effect, this email actually gave me a worse impression of the company.

It just goes to show you that even the big companies with the best dedicated staff and agencies can practice mindless marketing.