Citi Leads List of Winners at 15th Annual FCS Portfolio Awards

Financial Communications Society Recognizes 29 Companies for Excellence in Financial Services Advertising, Collateral & Digital Media. Best in Show Awards Won by American Express, Barclays, E*Trade, AXA and MetLife.

May 15, 2009 (New York) - At the 15th Annual FCS Annual Portfolio Awards, the Financial Communications Society (FCS) recognized 29 financial services providers for excellence in their advertising, collateral and digital media. Citi was the big winner, who, along with its Citi Cards, Citi Family Office, Citi Smith Barney and Citi Private Bank brands, won a total of 14 awards, including three Gold trophies. Merrill Lynch was the next biggest winner with nine awards, including one Gold for its Annika Sörenstam web site.

Best-in-Show Highlights:

• Barclays Capital, along with its Barclays Global Investor and iShares brands, won a total of seven awards, including three Gold trophies as well as the Best-in-Show B2B award for its interactive media advertising campaign called "The Trader's Best Friend," created by Willoughby Partners. The award was sponsored by BusinessWeek.
  
• American Express won the Best-in-Show Corporate Image award for its television commercial featuring Martin Scorsese and Tina Fey, created by Ogilvy New York. The award was sponsored by The Wall Street Journal. American Express won a total of six awards, including three Gold trophies.
  
• E*Trade Financial scored the Best-in-Show Consumer Retail award for its television campaign featuring "PukyBaby," created by Grey New York. The award was sponsored by CNBC. E*Trade also won a Silver for its multimedia advertising campaign.
  
• AXA's "MyRetirementShop Emercial," created by PrimeLook Inc., was good enough to garner the firm its one trophy of the night, a Gold, as well as the Best-in-Show Interactive award, which was sponsored by Yahoo!
  
• MetLife enjoyed a golden performance for the night: four awards, all Gold trophies, plus the Best-in-Show Multicultural award for its "South Asian Brand Television Campaign," created by IW Group. The award was sponsored by Forbes. MetLife also won Gold in the new ROI category, which recognized the success of marketing campaigns for their stated return on investment.

This year's Awards competition included more than 415 entries, with Gold, Silver and Bronze trophies awarded to Collateral, Web Sites, and Advertising in print, television, out-of-home, direct mail, interactive and multimedia categories. Winning entries were received from 29 financial services providers, including investment firms, credit card companies, investment banks, brokerages, insurance companies, and commercial banks.

The awards were presented at a gala dinner on May 14th at Terminal 5 in New York City. A sell-out crowd of more than 400 professionals from the financial services, media, advertising and marketing industries attended the event, which was sponsored by the Fortune / Money Group, Forbes and The Economist.

Click here for a complete list of award winners.