Sunday, April 13, 2014

Marketing Wall Street to Mad Men

As Mad Men begins its last season (actually, its penultimate half season) brush up on the era with three ads from April, 1969.

By 1969 growth stocks had become a craze. So-called Gunslingers frantically traded speculative go-go stocks, creating avalanches of paper that overwhelmed brokers' back offices. Merrill Lynch ran this apologetic ad. "Paperwork, we've got it …. And, quite frankly, service problems, too."


The surge in growth stocks reflected real economic progress. Many a Salaried Man, including those in advertising and network TV, went from entry-level affluent to investment-management prospect. Merrill Anderson produced this ad for U.S. Trust, featuring a clever John Northcross illustration.


Not everyone approved of members of the Greatest Generation who became salaried men. Where was their get up and go, their entreprenurial spirit? Happily, many did launch businesses and some succeeded beyond their expectations. They were the target market for this Chemical Bank ad:

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