Disliked. Very, very , very disliked.

Apparently, people aren't to accepting of the Citi "Very, very, very Rewarding" commercials. According to people polled in the USA Today AdTrack study, only 7% of respondents reported liking the ad, 52% said they disliked the ad and only 8% believed the ad was effective.

The campaign aired during the holiday season to showcase how easy it is to pile on the points with Citi's holistic rewards approach. From what I can tell, Citi's reward program and long list of services are respectable. The ads are one part of Citi's agressive consumers marketing campaign. Other growth tactics include:

• New financial products, such as its online Citibank e-Savings.
• More branches.
• Expansion into new markets, such as Philadelphia and Boston.
• More one-stop shopping, such as putting Smith Barney brokers in some Citibank branches.

Obviously, Citi isn't suffering a decline in profits due to overspending and under performing. Fourth quarter profits were up 14%. What I wonder is how effective Citi customers found the ads? I don't know this for sure, but if one of the campaign's goals was to get current customers to use more products, then the strategy makes sense, regardless of what a random sample of survey respondents said. Maybe they didn't get a lot of new customers, but if the ads spoke directly to current customers showing them how easy it is to improve their banking experience, then, maybe it worked.

Link to the article.