Wealth Management?

Don’t those TV ads for US Trust/Bank of America just warm the ventricles of your fast-pumpin lil’ heart? Introduced last Fall and continuing to air today, the BOA ads are aimed at today’s modern millionaires who earned rather than inherited their fortunes. Bout time someone paid attention to these po hard-working folks. The ads, “aimed at individuals with at least $3 million to invest, revolve around the idea of self-made money…… ” According to a BOA press release adapted as a New York Times news story, one television spot focuses on a man in his 50s with a vintage automobile collection. “The most valuable car in his collection isn’t the Italian roadster or Le Mans racer or the British limousine, but a 1968 bus,” says a woman’s voice as grainy footage of a family plays, showing the man in his younger days with a vintage Volkswagen bus.

Another ad begins with a camera panning a row of suburban tract houses. A serene voice says: “She owns a house in Palm Beach. A villa in St. Bart’s. A condo in Sun Valley. And yet a piece of her still lives on a cul-de-sac in Ohio.” Awww…that’s just darn-right all-American-cuddley. With today’s economy tanking, mortgage defaults at record highs, rising food and fuel costs…it’s good to know that America’s self-made millionaires will be able to manage their wealth. Whew. Cross that one off my worry list.