The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down something like 8 million points, the economy is in the tank and the federal government is spending hundreds of billions to bail out the financial system. So you’d think those in the financial services industry would be bending over backward to reassure jittery customers that their money is in better hands with a brokerage firm than, say, under a mattress.

Well, that would be wrong. Several weeks into one of the worst financial crises in modern history, few companies that help ordinary Americans invest their money appear to be doing something -- from a straight advertising perspective -- to try to convince us that we should do business with them.

Take, for example, the last few issues of The New Yorker, a magazine that is always rife with financial services ads. Flipping through the pages, we did find a number of witty cartoons on the subject -- "A banker, eh? Can you make a living at that?" one opined -- but we were sorely disappointed that almost none of the advertisers had updated their campaigns to address the current financial crisis.

Fidelity

Barclays Capital, which recently bought up some assets from bankrupt Lehman Brothers, boasted that it is sponsoring an art exhibit. Lincoln Financial Group trotted out the usual feel-good images of happy children basking in the glory of their parents great investment choices.

Vanguard’s ad featured two boats, one more weighed down than the other, in an attempt to argue that its cost structure is lower. T. Rowe Price urged investors to roll over their 401(k)s into its accounts.

Ameritrade’s ad featured its usual pitch that it wants your business even if you don’t make a million bucks. Merrill Lynch -- wait, weren’t they recently bought by Bank of America as part of this financial unraveling? You wouldn’t know from an ad focusing on one of its wealthy clients.

Fidelity Investments gets credit for alluding to the crisis. A New Yorker ad carried the tagline "Looking for more investment stability?" and a Newsweek ad argued: "In markets like these, put Fidelity’s 60 years of experience to work for you." Still, Fidelity loses points for missing the opportunity to get more creative. The New Yorker ad, for example, was otherwise just a boring page of text dominated by a list of yields on certain investment vehicles.

However, we also give Fidelity credit for bulking up its Web site with lots of plainly written pieces explaining the crisis and how it affects ordinary Americans. Charles Schwab’s site also sought to respond aggressively, prominently arguing, "During times like these, count on us for the help you need."

Vanguard’s site, by contrast, on a recent day featured yet again a comparison on costs -- an important issue, but surely not the first thing on investors’ minds these days.

Barclays was promoting its environmental goals -- again, laudable but not exactly on point -- while Merrill Lynch was touting its part in a $13.9 billion mining deal.

T. Rowe Price urged people who went to its Web site to "Invest with Confidence." In times like these, we’re guessing there isn’t a lot of that going around.