This new E-Trade campaign with Kevin Spacey is kind of odd, because while it’s dryly amusing, it kind of makes him seem a bit smug and condescending, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s in a fun way, but it kind of rubs me the wrong way, as investment banks are already viewed as smug and superior, and this reminds us of that.
But if they’re going to use Kevin Spacey for an ad campaign, then why not make ones referencing his big movie roles? Like, for one, he could play Roger Kint from The Usual Suspects, and he gets someone to invest in all these companies, and when he leaves, everything he referred to is all over the room: coffee, electric lighting, floor tiles, computers, poster art, etc., and they realize he was spinning a tale off the top of his head, so they think he’s a scam artist; but then they check their E-Trade online stock monitoring stuff, and they’re making big profits on all of them! Oh, and anyone refusing to switch to E-Trade would get a visit from Keyser Söze (<Ooh, an umlaut! That would make a good metal band name. It probably is one already.), and they’d be rubbed out, and their house burned down. (<That’s what you call the hard sell.) That would be fun, wouldn’t it?
Also, Kevin Spacey could talk to his retired military man neighbor about E-Trade, and when the investments take a nosedive, the guy could shoot him, like in American Beauty. Also referencing American Beauty, Kevin Spacey could advise an attractive high school cheerleader on what to invest her windfall inheritance in, and her investments create so much profit that she waits for him at home in his bed, covered in rose petals, to surprise and reward him. And, of course, when he screws up too many customers investments, he gets fired from E-Trade and goes to work in the drive-through booth of a fast food restaurant, where he catches his wife cheating with another, more successful investment broker.
Then we could see Kevin Spacey play Lex Luthor (from Superman Returns), who tries to crash the stock exchange, but Superman gets a bunch of power investors to stop him using E-Trade, where trades are very inexpensive, and they’re faster than using a regular broker. And so Lex Luthor, using a traditional brokerage firm, is stymied again in his dastardly deeds, and all thanks to E-Trade!
And next we could see Kevin Spacey in an ad for E-Trade where he’s the horrible boss (from Horrible Bosses) of some stockbrokers, and so they use E-Trade to figure out what stocks to pick, and so they all make money and save their jobs. (Or else, he fires a broker, who makes even more money investing in the market through E-Trade at home, so much so that he starts his own brokerage firm and puts Kevin Spacey out of business.)
And, for even more fun, we could see Kevin Spacey’s Congressman Frank Underwood from House of Cards, and he’s making a fortune investing with E-Trade in stocks he’s manipulating with legislation and back room deals that favor his preferred corporate interests (while punishing those he does not favor), with the legalized insider trading that Members of Congress have loopholed for themselves, through their unforgivable corruption, greed and hypocrisy (which is only a part of why they have lost the lion’s share of public trust lately).
What? They won’t make ads like these? Darn. Then why did they hire Kevin Spacey?
Here are some examples of the E-Trade Kevin Spacey ads:
BTW: Notice how he doesn’t help the rock climbing woman, but merely tosses her a business card and flies away. I wonder if they do that when your investments are in trouble.
