The classic set of Washington Mutual commercials that came out in 2008, just as the bank - and the rest of the economy with it - was tanking, were about as perfect a social barometer as there has been in my lifetime. While the bankers, and their Wall Street co-conspirators were trading up and getting out on the real-time roller coaster of fiscal disaster, my bank - Washington Mutual - was running a really fun collection of consumer messages with theme Whoo Hoo!!!
I'm guessing that not too many people are finding it difficult to grasp my point here. One might find it amusing to watch the game show bankers speaking cluelessly except for the fact that it was a little too close to reality to accept with proper social aplomb.
Come the meltdown, CHASE bank bought up Washington Mutual and promptly launched a whole set of new CHASE ads for banking in California, using the lovely chorus line "We all shine on..." like California is the Sunshine State (which is actually Florida, and we WON'T go there at the moment). What the bankers at CHASE and/or the creative types at their ad agency don't seem to have grasped is that this lovely little light hearted chorus comes from John Lennon's absolutely brilliant song Instant Karma which - it seems to me - is exactly what these greedy funny men (and their greedy pocket politicians) are courting with every new move of their greedy little pens.
