Making Investment Advisers Sound Friendly

Bankers were expected to be stuffy half a century ago. Especially trust bankers (see Auntie Mame). The remarkable feature of Chase Manhattan's nest egg ads was copy carefully crafted to sound casual and friendly. This example appeared 50 years ago this month:



Cornwall's covered bridge still stands, by the way. Check it out if you're passing through western Connecticut.

Merrill Lynch probably set the pace for chatty, informal ads at the time. Columns like this one appeared on the last page of The New Yorker weekly.