Our finest Zeitgeist chroniclers–Tom Wolfe, Oliver Stone–haven’t yet tackled the late ’90s gold rush. Until they do, the best pop-cultural representation of how overnight riches are transforming old notions of wealth can be found in ads for Internet services. Many of them, especially commercials for online brokerages like Discover, ETrade and Ameritrade, suggest that the psychology of the day-trading market shares much in common with–as you might expect–lotteries. “If you look at lottery ads, they almost always use lower- middle-class people who end up dining with the Duchess of Windsor,” notes University of Florida professor James B. Twitchell, who’s written on advertising and consumer culture. As the ads spawn imitators, TV is constantly reminding us that there’s a new–and far easier–way to make money out there. (“If your broker’s so great,” asks an ETrade spot, showing a broker sweating over his phone, “how come he still has to work?”)
Some regulators are fretting about all the hype. “When firms again and again tell investors that online investing can make them rich, it creates unrealistic expectations,” SEC chairman Arthur Levitt said in firing off a warning shot in a May speech. So far the ad industry has responded in unison: lighten up. The ads are jokes, exaggerations, intended to grab eyeballs. “People aren’t naive enough to think all they need to do is open a $2,000 account and in a month they’ll have the riches to buy an island,” says John Yost, Black Rocket’s third founder.
Still, the tough talk has had an impact. Last week ad-industry honchos met to discuss the criticism; regulators may hold formal meetings later this year. Ameritrade pulled an edgy spot called “Mama’s Gotta Trade,” in which Mom clicks her way to a $1,700 profit in just minutes. When Black Rocket unveils its newest Discover work this week, there’s no wealth in sight. Other firms seek credibility by airing cautionary ads. In one spot, E*Trade shows a stock soaring, a worker who owns it quitting his job, and then the stock tanking. The tag line: try not to get carried away. Hmmm. It seems a little late for that.
