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CHAPTER 10: E*TRADE
SUMMARY
Nicholas Utton, Chief Marketing Officer of E*TRADE, states that E*TRADE disrupted the
financial market in 1996 by letting the consumers trade online at a low cost compared to big
brokerage firm competitors. E*TRADE’s goal is for its consumers to become engaged with its
company. They use the “AIDA” model: awareness, interest, desire, and action—they feel that
advertising will inspire consumers to become engaged in the E*TRADE brand.
E*TRADE first aired one their TV commercials during the 2000 Super Bowl—the one time of
the year when viewers are fully engaged in commercials (a “theater” experience for the viewers).
The awareness and buzz/water cooler factor generated from their first Super Bowl ad were
tremendous. Tens of thousands of consumers flocked to their Web site as a result. The video
highlighted two of E*TRADE’s talking baby commercials. The first commercial showed the ease
of using E*TRADE (i.e., “if a baby can do it…”). The second commercial demonstrated the
amount of money you can save by using E*TRADE instead of a traditional bank around the
corner (i.e., the baby saves enough money using E*TRADE to rent a clown). The commercials
are some of the most viewed videos on YouTube. Airing ads during the Super Bowl is a huge
financial and return-on-investment risk, but E*TRADE’s baby ads have broke through the clutter
to communicate E*TRADE’s ease of use and low price for consumers.
Nicholas explains that E*TRADE’s storefront is the Web site. They continuously work on
technology, such as their mobile platform, to make it easier for consumers to use E*TRADE to
control their portfolios.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. Using the information communicated in the video, apply the 6M model for communications
planning to the E*TRADE Super Bowl commercials.
2. Even though the advertising budget method was not discussed in the video, encourage students
to attempt to apply each of the methods to the E*TRADE ads.
3. The chapter briefly mentions the impact of new technology for delivering more creative and
better-targeted advertising. Encourage students to brainstorm new technological ways to get
E*TRADE’s value proposition out there in the marketplace.
1. The video focuses primarily on E*TRADE’s Super Bowl commercials. Go on the internet to
investigate others elements of integrated marketing communications that E*TRADE utilizes.
2. Imagine that Nicholas from the video comes to your class and tasks students to come up with
an entirely new TV commercial creative design for E*TRADE. Students should work in small
groups on this task and present their pitches to the class.
