Advertising Rule From Mad Men Days

If Sterling Cooper (the Mad Men agency now swallowed up by McCann) had a wealth management account, they would have known the rule well:

The bigger the bull market, the greater the ad spending.

Corollary: When bears emerge, wealth managers lose the urge to splurge.

True half a century ago, and probably true still.

The rule may seem illogical. Investors fear loss more than they desire gain, so bear markets should make them more willing to seek expert help. Wealth managers take the contrary view: They  find new accounts easiest to come by near market highs because bull markets make investors greedy.

This year, with the market near nominal highs, ads for wealth management are plentiful. Both BNY Mellon and Bessemer Trust had ads in last Sunday's NY Times magazine. Half a century ago, when the Dow flirted with highs it would not reach again until the 1980's, fiduciaries also were advertising briskly. For example:

In 1965 senior execs were paid a pittance by today's compensation standards, but this one didn't suffer. He got to fly on the new company plane! Chase Manhattan chose a more leisurely theme:

Vintage autos are just as appealing today as they were fifty years ago.  Here's a bonus ad from the same issue of The New Yorker, featuring a car that's still fondly remembered. So fondly that Lincoln may bring out a new Continental.

Art directors probably haven't received their due on Mad Men. It was the art director who realized the Continental ad required lots of white space and an understated headline.

Finally, one more colorful collage from Irving Trust:

Note the elephant on the Thailand medal at lower right.

Three Bank Ads From Spring, 1965

OK, Boston has set a new record for the amount of snow falling in one winter. Time to think spring. For inspiration, three ads from half a century ago.

The country gentleman in the Chase nest egg ad contrasts with the urbane financier portrayed by  Citi, or as it was known in those days, First National City:

Note the double sales pitch: We'd like to manage your personal portfolio, and we want your company's pension plan, too.

Fifty years ago, pension plans actually had genuine, full service trustees. Corporate fiduciaries eventually lost the business because they were perceived as too timid, too dull. MBAs told companies they should regard their pension plans as profit centers. In hindsight, it wasn't the MBAs' finest hour.

Though the Irving ad below doesn't  feature fiduciary services, the salute to world's fairs reminds us of what people were looking forward to in the spring of 1965. New York's 1964-65 World's Fair was not as grand as the 1939-40 extravaganza, but as the fair's Disney exhibit sang, "It's a small world, after all."

Ads From the Growth Stock Era

"Stocks yield more than bonds because stocks are riskier." That folk wisdom prevailed for the first half of the twentieth century, wavering only in 1929. You know what happened then.

By 1964, however,  the new era of Growth Stocks had kept stock yields lower than bond yields for half a decade. Chase Manhattan's nest egg ads responded. No more beating around the bush with loss leaders like custody. This March 1964 ad makes a simple pitch for investment advisory service.

Personal note: The old pumper is from my old home town.

Also from March 1964, this ad from a Greenwich, Connecticut trust company. Putnam was a classy wealth manager in its day. Bank of New York Mellon acquired Putnam in the late 1990s.

In 1964, the Putnam ad tells us,  the most expensive residential property in Greenwich was priced at $450,000. Today the most expensive is the waterfront estate we showed you here. Then offered at $190 million, the 50-acre waterfront property is now available for $130 million.

A bonus March 1664 ad: This Irving Trust message didn't enable Irving to succeed as a major commercial bank, but it sure looked good.

Some Ads Age Better Than Others

Merrill Anderson produced this U.S. Trust ad in 1963. Illustrator John Northcross certainly flattered the investment thinkers. Today, alas, it looks like a meeting of the White Men In Suits Investment Club.

And not without reason. In 1963 even some of the trust company's female customers believed investing was, by its very nature, a man's world.

Happily, 1963 also featured transcontinental jets and an all-mighty dollar. Americans could live  lavishly as they drummed up business around the world. These Irving Trust ads still please the eye.

Ads from the Mad Men Era, Continued

Did you know the United States had – and I guess still has – the fastest ocean liner ever built? Instead of hitting an iceberg, the United States got docked by the jet age.

Mad Men's costumers and set designers may already have checked out this 1969 Chemical Bank ad – contemporary guidance on how a high net worth family was supposed to look. (That $580,00? Think $4 million or so today.)

You can bet Irving would not have addressed this ad to businessmen today. But isn't it cool that in the 1960s a bank could decorate an ad with flowers?

Target Trust Market: The Salaried Man

In its last decades The Irving Trust Company concentrated its print advertising on commercial banking. Here's a rare exception – a trust ad from the spring of 1966. The illustration presumably looked arty forty-five years ago. A bit spooky now.

Note that Irving wasn't looking for Old Money. The ad is addressed to those Earl MacNeill identified eight years earlier as 'The Salaried Man."

Irving Trust's Remarkable Pop Ad

After Earl MacNeill retired from Irving Trust and joined Merrill Anderson, he continued to write a trust periodical for Irving. In print advertising, however, the bank concentrated on commercial services. In 1969, seeking to become a player in mergers and acquisitions, Irving published the amazing ad above.

At the time the artist, Jacqui Morgan, was known for her Electric Circus poster. Commissioning her to do an illustration for a staid old Wall Street bank was a deliberate shocker – as if the Saturday Evening Post decided to buy cover art from Peter Max instead of Norman Rockwell.

Unfortunately, Irving never gained the critical mass to compete with the megabanks. In 1988, after a bitter battle, it was taken over by Bank of New York.

To glimpse the stature Irving enjoyed in earlier times, see the art deco skyscraper at 1 Wall Street that served as its headquarters.

More of Jacqui Morgan's early work can be seen here.

When the Financial World Shrank

In 1958 BOAC launched transatlantic jet airliner service. Banks and other businesses started thinking globally. Among the enthusiasts was Irving Trust. The Irving called attention to its global banking aspirations with a series of colorful ads, including this one from just fifty years ago.


Picture similar traditional costumes on children of the world. Disney did, and the result opened in the Pepsi pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair: "It's a small world after all, it's a small world after all . . ."

In today's global village, businesses large and small routinely operate internationally. Yet the financial side of global life remains inefficient, cumbersome and expensive.

How come a credit card issuer considers it business as usual to charge me an extra three percent if I'm rash enough to charge something in pounds or pesos?

How come the Euro Bloc can't seem to keep its act together?

Shouldn't we be able to do better in the 21st century?