Bank of America: Used Car Dealer?

They say money can't buy love. Apparently it can't buy perfect advertising either.

Earlier this year Bank of America bought U.S. Trust for a tidy $3.3 billion. The deal has created the world's largest wealth-management entity, according to Bank of America, with some $261 billion in assets under its wing.

So here's what I believe may be its first ad for the combined forces. Not exactly an earth-shaking announcement, is it?

Applying my golden rule of paraphrase, this is what the ad seems to be saying at first glance: Wealthy baby boomers who once were flower children of the 1960s still have fond memories of their Volkswagen bus.

So what? Is Bank of America going into the used car business?

Forgive the sarcasm, Mr. Bank. But this is a choice example of an ad maker (or ad committee) getting carried away by a cute idea without thinking it through.

We can assume that the committee decided to aim its first ad at a particularly promising segment of the wealth-management market — newly rich baby boomers, some of whose bank accounts have gone from pennies to millions or even billions since the beginning of the Internet boom. So how about attracting their attention and establishing a rapport with a striking photo symbolizing the era — hippies on the beach lounging around their bus?

That's OK as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough — or perhaps goes too far.

Not every baby-boomer billionaire was a flower child 30 years ago. Some undoubtedly were serious college students working hard at things like computer science, getting ready for the coming boom, with no time for fooling around. Others were heirs to the family wealth who were to be lifted into the megabucks stratosphere when the real estate market exploded. Still others were undiscovered business geniuses of the future who 15 years ago were washing dishes or working on the family farm.

All this may seem picky. But my point is that if your targeting isn't broad enough to include many types within the niche, and accurate enough that most likely prospects will say “They're talking to me,” your arrow will have missed its target.

The photo is a valid way of attracting the attention of baby boomers with a nostalgic symbol of their youth, whether they actually owned or rode in a Volkswagen bus themselves or not. And the ad seems to be a perfectly respectable vanity or branding ad by a big advertiser. Still, it seems a shame not to accomplish more than that.

Where's the “you”? The ad seems to be all about him — some rich guy who collects cars — and not me. (If that's who the ad really wants to target, think how much more personal and effective this message would be if we simply changed the word “his” in the headline to “your.”)

What's it selling? To find out, the reader has to dig into the copy displayed in light gray letters. But you can't afford to bury the subject of your ad in hard-to-read text because most readers won't get that far — unless they're highly motivated by self-interest, which this headline doesn't appeal to.

Where's the news? If a product or service isn't old, it's new — and ads that aren't reminders are (or should be) announcements. “New” is one of the most powerful words in the advertising lexicon. But here, details about the rollout of this huge wealth-management service are carefully concealed.

What's the reader benefit? Well, buried in that text is boilerplate copy about the unit's experience and understanding, etc. But to me it doesn't sound like any new benefit that's come out of the merger. (Of course, in all fairness, this is an early ad. Maybe later ones will cover that.)

What do I do now? No reply address or phone number, no Web site address or way to find out more.

In my makeover, I've sought to deal with all these shortcomings.

Who's my prospect? You're a wealthy baby boomer (or older) because “you've come a long way” since the days of the Volkswagen bus in the photo, and can “now afford a whole collection of valuable cars.” My headline is deliberately broadened to fit both those who once actually shared a Volkswagen bus and others who merely remember it as a symbol of an era.

What's my promise? Admittedly it's a long promise statement, but keeping the original photo and theme required it. I've broken it into “three easy pieces” for quick comprehension:

If you've come a long way since then (the “if” makes it clear we're not talking to everybody)…

…and can now afford a whole collection of valuable cars (so you must be wealthy)…

…you deserve all the advantages of our new private wealth-management capability. (Bank of America logo follows).

Where's my news? It's in the announcement headline and copy on the facing page.

Where's my reader benefit? I offer not just one but 12, listed in a separate box on the announcement page. They may not be accurate or valid…but since the advertiser doesn't seem to have formulated, summed up or set the benefits, I've merely dummied them in for demonstration purposes.

What can the reader (prospect) do now? Visit the Web site at the address given in the announcement copy. (No phone number — I suspect the bank doesn't want to be flooded with calls from the unwealthy.)

That's it. Now you see why Bank of America is going broke (joke) and I'm saving up $3.4 billion to buy out its wealth-management program (no, really).

W

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THOMAS L. COLLINS (thomas.l.collins@verizon.net) has been a direct marketing copywriter, ad maker, agency creative director and co-author of four books on marketing. He is currently an independent creative and marketing consultant based in Portland, OR.

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