Financial crisis

The current financial crisis can paradoxically be an argument to sell. Ads that use it present products as smart buys because they offer “real value” for money or invoke news headlines in a tactic that is known in marketing as borrowed interest, which hopes to gain attention by riding the coattails of important and topical events.

Here are a few samples:

This online campaign for HBO comedy Video (made by Venables Bell & Partners San Francisco) includes several situations that require a sense of humor like “You just opened up a mutual fund. That falls more often than your toddler” or “Your 401(k). Now down to $4K.”

"made for the most extreme downhills"

" other operations: see your account / historic - Need comfort?"

Some other examples are:
_The retailer’s suits Brooks Brothers who reprinted a 1942 pitch “It pays to buy at Brooks Brothers” stating that the most economical clothes are those that are made to last. The current ad declares just as the one of the 1940’s that “during these uncertain times, Brooks Brothers is still the investment you can trust.”
_Burger King ads ( by Crispin Porter & Bogusky) with its King character playing Robin Hood: He puts money back into the pockets of customers who buy items from the B. K. Value Menu.
_TV commercials from Walt Disney Co for the "Mary Poppins" Broadway musical.

“The crisis is part perception, part reality,” said Ezequiel Triviño, founder and president of the San Fransisco agency Wikreate. They gave a “Celebrate the Crisis” party where financial sections of newspapers were shredded. “If we are optimists, if we feel we can get out of the crisis, it will be less prevalent.”