(April 19) – “On Super Bowl Sunday, viewers expected a spate of wacky commercials from the E*Trade Group, the upstart online broker, and they weren’t disappointed. One spot showed a hospital patient who didn’t have to worry about health insurance because he had ‘money coming out the wazoo.’,” writes Stuart Elliott in today’s New York Times.
“But there was also a commercial about investing for the long term in which the hopes of a father who had counted on a cushy retirement financed by his son’s career as a professional basketball player were dashed when his offspring suddenly confided a desire to enter show business. Another spot, centered on a disastrous disaster movie, reminded investors that knowing when to sell might be just as important as knowing when to buy.
“By introducing a cautionary note into what had been one of the most effusive feel-good campaigns of the last year, the commercials, by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, were indicative of a new trend in advertising for brokerage firms. Reacting to a recent shift in the investment climate — not to mention the gut-wrenching plunge in stocks on Friday — marketers of financial products and services are moderating their pitches, playing down irrational exuberance in favour of counseling balance. ‘Financial advertising has gotten less silly,’ said Marten Hoekstra, executive vice president and marketing director at PaineWebber in New York.
“The result has been to cool down considerably a category that had been positively giddy in its ebulliently optimistic assertions about how easy it was to make money by buying stocks and mutual funds. The onslaught of such campaigns, primarily humorous, to promote brokers, online and traditional, has been one of the most noticeable signs of the galloping bull market.