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            Bust That Bank

            
               Take A Stand ,
produced by Trippi, McMahon and Squier for the Credit Union Campaign for
Consumer Choice.

            Increasingly, political
consultants are moving from pushing candidates to pushing issues, a change that
is unlikely to meet with universal approbation. Take A Stand is the
creation of political consultant Steve McMahon on behalf of credit unions. At
issue is legislation that would undermine the unions' federally
endorsed/guaranteed/protected competitive advantage over conventional
banks.

            The spot uses a tactic
common among candidates who don't want to take the in-your-face-negative route.
Its strategy is "comparative": Affirmation moves seamlessly into attack; the
positive sets up the negative.

            The message is explicit from
the get-go: "Big banks" are bad banks, the high-cost alternative you don't need
to settle for. The option, already availed of by "70 million Americans" just
like you, is ... the credit union. The initial visuals are fuzzy and sweet, and
ring newish variations on familiar themes of family and friends, companionship
and security. Though the family gathered around the table in this Ozzie and
Harriet update is stolidly suburban, it comprises Asians; though the spot
proffers a squishily trite bedtime-story shot, it does so with an explicit nod
to the minority family, an implicit nod to the minority parent.

            With their "low rate loans,"
credit unions let the American family bite off their bit of the dream, be it
new wheels, new digs, or a college degree. The spot serves up a sanitized,
sitcom version of the grand melting pot; the images of diversity are carefully
calibrated, almost disingenuously casual. We've seen the Asian family clustered
around cake, and we've seen the black mother reading to her child. We also get
the picnicking towheads, the strolling seniors, the black graduate.

            Now the nub: the entirely
credible complaint that big banks levy higher ATM fees. Focus groups have
identified this as a pet consumer peeve, and Take A Stand urges viewers
to do just that. The visual limns an urban skyline, superimposing a sinister
message--"Now the big banks want to take away your right to join a credit
union"--over an unsourced headline: "Tell banks to back off." Chyron and
narrative alike tap the eons-old, morally loaded distinction between concrete
jungle (home to "the malefactors of great wealth," as Theodore Roosevelt dubbed
monster corporations) and Walden wood (or its '90s version, the manicured
burbs). And you're given an 800 number, which is left on-screen through the
succeeding scenes. The sponsors of the spot really want you to make that
call--after which you'll be patched through to the office of your senator or
representative, your name added to a petition, and so on. After all, there are
several issue-advocacy techniques designed to show members of Congress your
"grassroots support."

            The end is even sweeter, and
pairs clasped hands: the grown-up hand and the kiddie hand; the black hand and
the white hand, and so on. So what if the narrative is a tad cluttered by all
the calls to action? It's to Steve McMahon's credit that Take A Stand 's
populism is entirely palatable. The proof of its success, however, may well lie
in the length of that petition.

            
               --Robert
Shrum