Solomon
When the Ameritrade company
launched a $200 million marketing drive to explain the joys of online trading
in autumn 1999, a barrage of TV commercials invited viewers to join in the fun.
The news was bullish, and the firm’s motto — "Believe in yourself" — provided
an upbeat message. Tech stocks led advances in self-affirmation.
A senior vice president at
Ameritrade proclaimed that online investing "empowers individuals to take
control of their financial lives." Within several months, the Nasdaq composite
index nearly doubled. When spring 2000 began, plenty of satisfied new customers
were glad to be playing the click-and-invest game.
Now, four seasons later, the
Nasdaq is less than half of where it was. Losses have been particularly
devastating for many of the investors who’d found the get-with-it
advertisements and other media hype too irresistible to resist a year ago.
These days, the online
trading commercials are on television with less frequency and less exuberance.
They seem to be more targeted at long-term professional investors. Meanwhile,
journalists speak ruefully, sometimes in morose tones, about the digital gold
that has turned to silicon ashes in the mouths of America’s stock-buying
public.
Sure, "caveat emptor" and all
that. Everyone should have known the risks. The same can be said for millions
of consumers who have let smiley cigarette advertisements coax them into
smoking. But if the online trading ads carried any warning labels at all, they
were in very small print.
On a daily basis, CNN’s "Moneyline"
and many other national TV programs stoked the buying frenzy. It was all quite
lucrative — bringing in record levels of commissions for brokerage houses and
high ratings for market-fixated network shows. Only spoilsports warned that
disaster loomed, and they didn’t get nearly as much air time as the boosters.
Today, news reports tell
about formerly soaring dot-com executives who have seen their multimillions (or
billions) turn into Nasdaq rubble. Even in burned-out condition, the stars of
cyberspace get plenty of media attention. Less common are the stories that
focus on rank-and-file investors who lost most of their life’s savings.
We still aren’t getting much
coverage of some grim details. For instance: How were so many people drawn in
by the warm-and-cuddly images of investment-by-mouse as a means to financial
security and personal glory? What was it about the prevailing media environment
that persuaded millions of Americans to put money they couldn’t afford to lose
into high-tech stocks that were incapable of sustaining vastly inflated share
prices?
Eighteen months ago,
Ameritrade was boasting in a news release that its huge ad blitz would go after
every sector of society: "The campaign’s target audience is more psychographic
than demographic, cutting across all ages, races, professions and income
levels."
All "income levels" included
people with close to zero disposable income. The online brokerage firms proved
adept at separating a lot of those individuals from their money.
Whatever their economic
class, many in the cross hairs stood to forfeit more than dollars. To the
extent that they bought into ad pitches and broader media mania for online
trading, people were also vulnerable to bait-and-switch tactics that
manipulated insecurities in the realm of self-esteem. With stocks climbing, a
slogan like "Believe in yourself" was apt to seem like a welcome boost, a pat
on the back. But when self-regard is pegged to stock prices, what happens when
the market tanks?
Embedded in the ostensible
affirmation was a much less humanistic message: Believe in wealth. And no
matter where the market is headed, that’s a message that ends up doing enormous
damage — inflicted with the help of ongoing media themes — portraying a
person’s capital buildup as a key indicator of worth as a human being.
Let’s face it: From splashy
magazine features to commercials and entertainment shows on television to
laudatory news profiles of venture-capitalist billionaires, mass media outlets
are frequently touting the accumulation of financial assets as the pinnacle of
achievement.
Viewed from another planet,
the basic character of these dominant media values would be clear. But we’re
accustomed to this constant propaganda. We’re encouraged to think it’s normal.
And the costs — for individuals and for our society — go well beyond any
losses in the stock market.
Norman Solomon is a
syndicated columnist. His latest book is "The Habits of Highly Deceptive
Media."
