Negative Ads Work, but Do They Hurt? Ads by Banks That Knock Banks Are in Vogue. Some Say Such Bank-Bashing Is Bad for the Industry. Others Say, "Bravo"

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Good morning, I am your bank manager, this is a robbery, down on the floor," he announces staccato, sounding half-bored. "What did he say?" asks a bewildered woman's voice. Pivoting, snarling, and raising his hands for emphasis, the manager retorts: "I said, DOWN ON THE FLOOR!" Choreographed, the bank staff--including the security guard--don eerie sheep masks and fleece the customers who are now lying face down. E*Trade's ad reached the maximum audience by being first aired during the Super Bowl (which almost 40% of Americans watch). One year later, gauging from its afterlife on YouTube (and subsequent airings on TV), the robbing bank manager seems to have been well received. Most of the 104 comments are favorable and 320 of the 184,552 people who had watched the ad, at last count, made it their favorite YouTube video. But when Albert Garrett, president and CEO of Robertson Banking Company, Demopolis, Ala., sees the ad, what comes instantly to mind is tellers in his locality who were killed in robberies. Several, offering no resistance, were shot dead in separate robberies within the past five years. Events tend to be felt close to home in places such as Demopolis. Despite its Greek name, meaning City of The People, Demopolis has but a scant 7,500 residents, so people tend to know each other. In one robbery, 50 miles away, the teller was killed because the robber knew she recognized him. Sorry, robbery is not funny For E*Trade to make a laugh of the idea of a robbery, "It's just disgusting to me," says Garrett. "How terrible it is to use a robbery to better their position. There are so many other ways you could say, 'please use E*Trade'." Garrett says he doesn't so much object to E*Trade bashing other banks as to its insensitivity about the actual loss of human life. With the "funny masks" and cinematic touches of E*Trade's ad (many YouTube commentators said they mistook it as a movie), he said he fears the ad might inspire real-life copycat crimes. "It frightens me to see something like this on TV." Garrett says he e-mailed E*Trade to ask them to pull the ad, but didn't get a reply. E*Trade spokeswoman, Pare Erickson, said, "The ad is being phased out, as we are launching a new campaign soon" and that E*Trade had nothing further to contribute to the discussion. There are other less contentious examples of ads that cross the line into what some consider to be bank-bashing. For years, credit unions have criticized banks and community banks have often taken swipes at big banks. The seemingly growing trend of banks beating up on themselves is also international. A unit of Bank of Scotland last year launched a campaign with the tagline "don't be a banker!"--a pun on a vulgar term that readers of this venerable publication will have to research for themselves on Google UK. Accentuate the negative The maligned image of the banker has been with us dating back at least to the observations of Mark Twain (quoted in 'The Unbankers' story in the August 2007 issue. To see it, click the "digital edition" link at ababj.com and then click on "archive".) So, when Washington Mutual launched a 2006 TV ad campaign skewering toupee-wearing bankers: "They're out of touch, they're old-fashioned and they're greedy ..." some in the industry inwardly commended WaMu for showing bankers to be human in that they could laugh at themselves--well ... at other bankers, that is. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Similarly, Kaplan, Thaler & Associates, a prominent New York ad agency, in its campaign for U.S. Bancorp makes other hypothetical banks look like idiots. Asked about it, the agency told ABABJ's June issue, "We thought it would be funny to accentuate the negative ..." Others disagree, believing that hurting the body is hurting the self. "When you tear down an industry, you are tearing down yourself," says Margaret Kane, now a management consultant who formerly ran marketing campaigns in Wells Fargo Bank and worked for advertising firms. …