Wealth advisors back from the dead help keep today’s private bankers in line. Preparing for a client meeting, a private banker encounters Ghosts of Banking Past from over the last 200 years, learns from their insights and applies them to his client relationships, with of course stunning results. So goes the Bank of New York’s new T.V. ad spot for its private banking business. |image1|

“Our advertising campaign embodies the experience and wisdom we have acquired and shared with our clients across generations and changing economic times, while reaffirming the values we share with them as we help manage their wealth,” says Leslie Godridge, a senior executive v.p. for the Bank of New York asset management, private-client services and retail banking, says in a press release.

That old chestnut

Bank of New York private bank head John Dowd says the spot’s tagline, “The Private Bank Since 1784,” addresses “what affluent consumers say matters most in selecting a private bank - depth and breadth of experience in wealth management and preservation.”

The whole thing refers to the bank of New York’s claim to be the oldest bank in the U.S. In truth a sliver of Wachovia can trace a line straight back to Bank of North America, which was chartered two years before the Bank of New York – and, in common with the Bank of New York, it can claim Alexander Hamilton as one of its guiding lights. For that matter the Bank of America houses the old Bank of Massachsetts, chartered just months after the Bank of New York.

The Bank of New York’s Private Bank, which administers more than $60 billion in assets, is also running a print-advertising campaign in “a targeted mix of lifestyle, business and finance, arts and literature and regional publications,” according to a press release. –FWR

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