Let the Fox Guard Your Nest Egg?

"Never let the fox guard the henhouse," the saying goes. American Culture Explained offers this example

“You put your spendthrift brother in charge of managing your inheritance and gave him power of attorney for your account? That is letting the fox guard the henhouse!”

So why is the fox pictured above allowed to guard a nest egg? Because he's the mascot of Middleburg Bank. What grunge is to Seattle, fox chasing is to Middleburg, Virginia. Here's a vintage Sports Illustrated feature from the Camelot era that captures the flavor of the place.

The Middleburg fox popped up today because David Sobel, once expected to succeed Warren Buffet at Berkshire Hathaway, believes the bank is too small (assets of a billion or so) and wants to see it sold.

Will Middleburg's gentry set the hounds on him?

The Thoroughly Modern 'Sixties

Technical progress has slowed, some claim. Life around 1910, when many homes still lacked electricity, was primitive compared to the 1960's. Five decades later, we have computers and smartphones, but really, are we living much better than they did in the 'Sixties?

You couldn't Skype in 1966. But as the Bell System boasted, you could talk with most anyone, anywhere, who had a telephone.

Winter recreation? In 1966 the new adult toy of choice was the snowmobile, featured in this Chase Manhattan ad.

All in all, life in 1966 was pretty good, if you didn't mind hippies or second-hand cigarette smoke.

Nest Eggs of Autumn, 1965

In the 1950's Chase Manhattan's nest-eggers sailed and skied and hunted. By 1965, as the iconic ad campaign was winding down, guns and yachts gave way to agriculture and animal husbandry.

Wealth Management Ads, Fall of ’65

A few ads from the year When Wall Street Was Sitting Pretty.

New England had lots of antique shops five decades ago; visiting them was a popular fall pastime.

In the 1960's, only Merrill Lynch's thundering herd was bigger than Bache and Co.

"To manage capital profitably, someone must know the score…." Where but in Boston would you have found a wealth manager who considered being off key to be a fate worse than death? 

Boston Safe Deposit and Trust, alas, did not survive but was subsumed into what's now BNY/Mellon.

Here's a BNY ad from the fall of '65. Like Merrill Anderson's founder, BNY's agency favored illustrations over photos in ads.

Here's another fall tradition. Last Saturday morning my daughter's neighbor and a couple of friends were working away in the driveway with bushel baskets of apples and a cider press.

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."

Wealth Management for the Deluxe Lifestyle

Jim Gust called my attention to the premiere issue of the redesigned New York Times Magazine, thick with ads. Four million dollar condos. Watches with unmentionable prices. And a surprising number of marketing messages from wealth managers catering to the upper crust.

BNY Mellon boasts of a 97% client retention rate. First Republic spotlights one of its entrepreneur banking customers. Bessemer Trust expresses willingness to manage new wealth alongside old wealth. Glenmede, despite having dropped "Trust" from its logo, features its status as a privately-held trust company.

For readers of the magazine who are not yet really rich, Fidelity, Fisher, Schwab and Merrill Edge also offer wealth-management help.

Back in Mad Men days, nobody would have expected to see those ads in the Sunday Times magazine. A quick look at the comparable magazine section for February, 1965 reveals that ads for women's fashion and home furnishings dominated. Men were offered stereo record players.

Ads for investment services and products? Back then they were found in the Sunday business pages. Mutual funds were a hot topic, as shown at right.

One reason for the migration of investment ads to the magazine section of the Sunday NY Times was the need to reach women. Equally important, wealth managers to the truly wealthy wanted to burnish their upper-crust image: "We manage family fortunes for the sort of people who own multimillion-dollar condos and buy expensive watches without looking at the price tag."

Neither of those motivations is new.  As we've shown you from time to time, back in the 1960s Chase Manhattan and U.S. Trust regularly advertised in The New Yorker. On that magazine's pages their messages mingled with ads from purveyors of women's fashions and suppliers of all manner of upscale merchandise. And, of course, Chase ads could run in full color.

Here's a nest egg ad from the winter of 1964-65, portraying a clock collector. Does he seem a bit stolid for the Swinging Sixties?

Mobile Video, Live-Banker Mortgages, Gunless Hunting

Fifty years is only yesterday or ancient history, depending on which ads from 1964 you look at.

Video on the run. In the 1950's Texas Instruments and an Indiana company developed a popular novelty: a little transistor radio. Sony took the idea and ran with it. Now Sony was taking the next step, a portable TV. (You thought mobile viewers didn't start falling off curbs until iPhones came along?)

Live-Banker Mortgages. Five decades ago, private banking aspired to meet the requirements of elite borrowers who didn't always fit the standard mold. Their needs would be evaluated and perhaps met by actual bankers wearing suits. Those days must seem long, long ago to Ben Bernanke, who couldn't talk a computer into refinancing his mortgage.

Gunless hunting. Men with guns were a staple of Chase Manhattan's nest egg ads. But times were changing. Wildlife needed conserving, some said. Chase responded by offering this new age hunter.

From Ladies of Leisure to Women CEO’s

Sallie Krawcheck, in partnership with Pax World Management, is launching a fund to invest in enterprises with a better-than-average proportion of women in key positions.

What a difference half a century makes. Ladies of leisure like the ones depicted in these 1964 ads certainly didn't expect their daughters or granddaughters to be CEOs of major companies.

Chase Nest Egg Ads: the Cliche and the Exotica

Imagine you're a Mad Man in Sterling Cooper's early days, the 1950s. Your client needs photos of individuals engaged in off-duty pursuits that appeal to the moneyed class.

"Golf, of course," you say.

"Forget golf. Too obvious. Think of something that's not a cliché."

Most likely, that's why none of the Chase Manhattan nest egg ads we've shown you over the years has included a golf club.

By 1964 the ads were in their post-classic phase. Most every upscale pastime involving wind, water or wildlife had been portrayed. So we come to the last resort:

A more characteristic nest egg ad from 1964 was this, featuring a Charolais calf. Imports of this prized French breed had been banned since the 1940s for fear of hoof and mouth disease.

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.

A Mysterious Chase Nest Egg Ad

Watching Rafa trounce Federer at the Australian Open reminded me of this 1963 Chase Manhattan ad, one that I've been puzzling over since last summer.

"Saturday afternoon with the young fry" is the photo caption. A young boy stands on what appears to be a private tennis court.  He is poised to volley at net. But we see no net, no other players, no tennis instructor. Just the boy, alone on a tennis court without a net.

No wonder Dad isn't paying attention. His chair is turned slightly away, next to a small table on which sits a pitcher. Is he sharing the contents (fruity and perhaps rum based?) with someone to the right of the picture frame? Who? The boy's mother? The tennis instructor? A girl friend? We have no clue.

What do you think is going on?

Two Ads Celebrating the Season

During the middle third of the Twentieth Century, at this time of year Coca Cola virtually appropriated Santa Claus. This ad, from 1963, features the next-to-last portrayal of Santa by Haddon Sundblom, the illustrator who brought the jolly old elf of The Night Before Christmas to life.

Christmas holiday ads by banks and trust companies half a century ago were rare. This Chase nest-egg ad was an unusual if partial exception. The ad copy is standard. The photo illustration isn't. It's the only example we've seen of a nest-egg ad where the egg plays second fiddle to the scenery. It's as if Chase were saying, "We want your business but gosh, isn't this an evocative holiday scene?'

A Nest Egg In Autumn

Much has changed in half a century – defective grantor trusts, for instance, have gone from income-tax boo-boo to popular gifting strategy – but the Fall foliage around our town looks much the same as seen in this 1963 Chase Manhattan nest-egg ad.

Related post: Getting a Man's Nest Egg With a Gun

Putting on the Dog, Fifty Autumns Ago

Two more trust-and-investment ads from fifty years ago, showing that dogs can be either Old Money or New Money.

Beagling, a scaled-down alternative to fox hunting, was definitely Old Money. (Your obedient blogger remembers when The Ox Ridge Hunt Club in Darien, Connecticut had a pack of beagles.) You can sample a classic hunt in this video.

"Hound Dog," evoked in this Manufacturers Hanover ad, was surely New Money. Best known from Elvis Presley's 1956 recording, the song is considered a key link in the evolution of Rock from R&B.

One million dollars was real money in 1963. For instance, $1 million could buy 58 brand new Rolls Royces . . .

Rolls Royce: $17,000

. . . or 187 Jaguar XK-Es.

XK-E: $5,325

Burnishing the Image of Wealth Managers, 1963

Fifty years ago, stockbrokers didn't always get much respect. "My broker?" you can almost hear Mad Men's Roger Sterling ask, "You mean the guy who churns my account to pay for his yacht?"

Merrill Lynch promoted a classier image. The wire house wanted its registered reps to be seen as gentlemen and scholars.

Brooks Brothers suits provided the gent look. Weekly columns in newspapers and The New Yorker created a scholarly aura. This one calls on an English clergyman from a couple of centuries ago to endorse the notion that a little greed is good.

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Buy-side wealth managers (a term unused if not unknown in 1963) at bank trust divisions had their own image problems: Stuffy. Dull as ditch water. Not really with it.

To promote the feeling that trust officers were regular fellows, the copywriters for Chase Manhattan's nest egg ads adopted an unbankerly informality. What bank today would describe its trust staff as "eagle-eyed and rock steady?"

Serendipitously, this ad fits nicely with the current meteor showers we're enjoying.

How Would You Spend a Nest Egg?

Two Chase Manhattan nest egg ads from 1958. Both show wealthy gents at leisure.

One feeds his fish. Now that's exciting.

The other drives a Porsche 356 cabriolet around Europe. That's more like it.

Ring Them Bells!

Independence Day, wrote John Adams, should be celebrated with "pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations….."

This Chase nest egg ad, from exactly half a century ago, chose to feature bells.

The Almost Liberated Woman, Cont'd.

Following up on a recent post, here are two ads that illustrate the changes wrought in the 1960s.

From 1963, a Chase nest egg ad features a well-dressed woman watering her plants. (Shouldn't she have had staff for that?)

Half a decade later, in 1968, Peck and Peck shows us a woman more interested in growth stocks than growing plants. (Welcome to the Go-Go Years!)

Clothes No Longer Make the Man

In 1963 I wouldn't have worn a suit to paint the porch furniture. My father certainly wouldn't have donned one of his Brooks Brothers sack suits before touching up the trim on the barn. So why is the man in this 1963 Chase nest egg ad wearing a suit?

Because a guy wearing an old sweater and stained khakis wouldn't have looked rich.

Half a century later, rich men display a variety of looks: bespoke suit, black tee shirt,  jeans and boots, hoodie . . . . Mark Shaw, the Chase photographer, would have a tough time depicting a generic "rich man."

A decade after this Chase ad ran, Thomas Stanley began studying the affluent. After discovering that many did not look that rich, he became a popular speaker at financial marketing gatherings, gaining national prominence with his 1988 book, "The Millionaire Next Door."

Before that best-seller, Dr. Stanley wrote "Marketing to the Affluent." A generation later, aspiring brokers and investment advisers still might find it worth reading.

Postscript: Strictly speaking, Mark Twain pointed out, clothes do make the man: "Naked people have little or no influence on society."