Financial services
In these hard times for job seekers, when unemployment is at its highest level in 16 years and the economy is mired in recession, many of us feel lucky just to have a job.
The online job search site Monster is arguing that there still might be room for improvement.
A new series of light-hearted Monster ads show people who are extremely ill-suited to their line of work, and might benefit from finding a career change via Monster’s Web site.
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| Monster |
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We uncharacteristically dropped our head and strode past the bell ringer in front of the supermarket the other day. Too busy. Too beaten down by this unforgiving, apprehensive year. Too eager that, if by rushing through it, we could make time hurry too and just be done with it. And, we have to admit, a little too tired of giving.
Season of giving? This was the year of giving. Although, unlike the giving the patient bell ringer who dealt with the slow but constant snowfall was seeking, it was less the charitable sort than the bailout sort. Banks (ridiculous). Investment banks (worse). Automakers (yet to be seen how bad a move). Airlines (lining up in the wings we hear). Contractors eager for a chunk of the billions Obama wants to (wisely) spend on infrastructure – and maybe can convince the government that retrofitting is so tired and public schools need the McMansion treatment that has served the real estate market so … never mind. And of course homeowners (oops, our mistake, that’d be socialism after all).
You’d think that in this supposedly resolute and independent country, there’d be a business not seeking a handout, and customers eager to subsidize that virtue. Well, one bank in rural Oregon makes that case.
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| Evergreen Bank |
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It’s rare that you can praise an ad and also say that it is hard to watch, but that’s perhaps the only way to accurately describe a recent commercial for the financial institution HSBC.
The ad, featuring haunting music by harpist and vocalist Joanna Newsom, recounts a vicious confrontation between police and anti-logging protesters. As the police drag the protesters away, a group of loggers walk by, saws in hand.
The twist -- and symbolic message of the commercial -- is that one of the loggers is in a relationship with one of the protesters, which you don’t realize until he bails her out of jail and they ride off together on a motorcycle.
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down something like 8 million points, the economy is in the tank and the federal government is spending 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.
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| Fidelity |
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Even if you don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, you probably have some stereotypes about us lurking in your head. Well, here’s a dirty little secret -- for all our talk of individualism, all of your stereotypes about us are true.
We are a region of smug hybrid owners, recycling fanatics and recumbent bicycle commuters. We love to broadcast our beliefs via bumper stickers. Before we moved here we may have been more fashionable, but now we see nothing wrong with wearing socks with our sandals, preferably paired with those pants that can unzip to become a pair of shorts should the weather improve. If we want to get fancy, we might throw a fleece vest over the whole ensemble.
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| Pemco |
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If you’re a has-been celebrity looking for work - and what has-been celebrity isn’t looking for work, by definition? - the good news is that there are other job prospects out there besides lame reality television shows. There’s also Geico.
The insurance company has for some time now been employing the likes of Little Richard, Joan Rivers and even Charo to “interpret” real people’s stories of how well Geico dealt with their insurance claims.
Maybe the well of real D-list celebrities is running dry, because now the company is turning to … a syrup bottle.
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By now, every bit comedian (and every slightly drunk guy who fancies himself a bit funny) has done a sendup of MasterCard’s “Priceless” ad campaign. (“There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.”) But chances are, no one has thought to introduce a creepy wandering eye into the act. For that, well, there’s MasterCard.
The credit company’s latest spot, which debuted during Sunday’s Academy Awards show, features a slightly retro, downtrodden guy whose “The Office”-ish life takes an unusual turn when one of his eyes starts wandering.
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We’re on record as loving Careerbuilder.com’s “Heart” Super Bowl ad, and are willing to go on record that the later one “Spider” wasn’t nearly as good.
Still given that most of the ads during the game stunk on ice, batting .500 is pretty good for any company not named Anheuser-Busch.
So when we heard that the company had a new viral-advergame-thingee we figured it’d at least be worth it to do some research. What a disappointment.
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| Careerbuilder |
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What a difference a week makes. As the New Year rang in we were writing about a mess that had way too many moving parts to work.
This week: Something that is even more over the top – including a barking cat.
Thing is, this one for Farmer’s Insurance actually works.
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| Farmer's Insurance |
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We liked the ads, Geico. We really did. Even though some of them at this point probably don’t need another repeat airing.
But when we heard that ABC was going to create a series based on the Geico cavemen, we had mixed emotions. On one hand, stretching out a funny joke for 30 minutes was probably a bad idea ("Saturday Night Live" has problems doing it for five minutes at a time). On the other hand, … OK, so the emotions weren’t exactly mixed.
Then came the news that the show's producers wouldn’t be showing the first episode in advance to critics. That’s not always a bad thing. Usually critics will declare a show must be terrible if it doesn’t get screened for critics. This is only partly true. A movie can be truly bad, yet studios don’t need to screen it because it has a huge built-in audience that doesn’t care what middle-aged print media writers think – just think of every teen slasher movie that’s been made in the past five years.
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| ABC |
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