The deadly, premeditated dullness of financial ads last week brought scornful shouts from two premeditating wits. In an address before the New York Financial Advertisers Association, Bernice Fitz-Gibbon, ad boss of Gimbel Bros., snapped that it was time banks stopped such “pious pronouncements” as these: “a great institution founded on the cornerstone of service and courtesy”; “the challenge of a new era demands the ultimate in achievement.” Said she: “One bank says ‘You are invited to use the name of this bank on your checks. It is a symbol of strength and security.’ What a lot of malarkey. If a check’s good, it’s good. Everybody will honor [it].”
It was not the adwriters themselves who should be blamed for such marble rhetoric, said Miss Fitz-Gibbon, but “the heavy hand of the heavy head of the heavy institution. . . . Every president ought to be kept out of advertising.”
Manhattan’s Billy Rose also devoted one of his syndicated columns last week to the dullness of financial ads, gave a Rosey example of how they might be done: “AMALGAMATED GOULASH—The Stock That Has Everything! Coming Soon to the Bijou (formerly E. F. Hutton, Inc.) Romance! Mystery! Dividends! Starring Mortimer Schnook, Our Vice President Who Thrilled You in ‘Passion on the Curb.’ Meaner Than Mason. Creepier Than Karloff. Doors Open 10:00 a.m. $13 a share.
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