UnNews:E*Trade is a baby-killer
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| A newsstand that's brimming with issues | ✪ | UnNews | ✪ | Saturday, December 21, 2024, 18:00:59 (UTC) |
| E*Trade is a baby-killer | 
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21 March 2014
NEW YORK CITY -- Discount brokerage E*Trade has dispatched the street-smart television baby that endeared the firm to customers in thousands of commercials.
The baby will be replaced by a singing cat named Beanie. Chief Executive Officer Paul Idzik said that any potential customers who believed a baby could speak in a baritone voice will be just as willing to believe that a singing cat can guide their investment decisions.
"Beanie" will burst into song with nonsense lyrics concerning ETFs and convertible debentures until the bedwetting former symbol of E*Trade storms off the set, saying, "I'm outta here. Fuck you, cat."
The 30-second ads are set to play, once each quarter, during every game of the NCAA basketball tournament, until TV watchers are sufficiently fatigued to open a managed account at the brokerage house.
New chief marketing officer Liza Landsman told wire services that the brokerage did not just fire its advertising agency and replace it with another, but changed the corporate focus from "what we were" to "what we are," emphasizing mobile devices and touch screens, as even some humor wikis have done lately.
Ms. Landsman says that the new campaign will be as iconic and "witty" as the ads with the puking baby, neatly dodging the question of why any of the corporate intrigue and wholesale dismissal of creative staff was necessary. Reportedly, the product is pretty spiffy too. The new ads just don't say — not unlike the old ones.
Sources[edit]
- Jed Horowitz "E*Trade bids goodbye to its iconic baby". Reuters, March 20, 2014