Since the year 2000, Capital One Financial — the nation's largest direct bank — has been promoting its credit card services by asking the question, " What's in Your Wallet?" Three years later it began promoting banking and other financial services using the same iconic tagline, slogan, and question. You’ve undoubtedly seen the ubiquitous Capital One ad campaign featuring celebrities asking that now famous question “What’s In Your Wallet?”

The company wanted to use the quote because it’s an interesting question. The stuff in our wallet represents financial security, purchase power, and prosperity. The question “What’s in your wallet?” is a clever way of planting doubt in our minds about whether or not we have the right stuff to get all the satisfaction we are looking for in life. It prompts us to wonder if we are getting all that we think we deserve. Is there more out there that we don’t yet have? Do we have what it takes to be successful? Of course, the intent of the ad campaign is to make us think that only this particular card will make us satisfied, secure, and significant. And if we don’t feel secure about having the right things in our wallet, perhaps we need to reevaluate its contents.

This ad was so successful that Capital One got its own Facebook page in 2011.

More Info: effie.org