Sound the bell; the Big Board’s back.
At least that’s what the New York Stock Exchange’s latest ad campaign is telling the world starting Sunday.
It’s the first big publicity push since the exchange became mired in the ugly fallout from boss Dick Grasso’s fat pay deal and a few major trading probes.
The exchange also is touting the fact that it has cleaned up its act and revamped its leadership to be more in tune with tougher standards in Corporate America.
Playing off a host of wholesome images – bike bells, school bells, ringing cell phones (a call from mom, of course), cow bells during a soccer match and, of course, wedding bells – the NYSE tries to cast the bell that opens trading each day as a beacon of hope for investors.
“Optimism has always been celebrated with a bell,” the ad starts – “and every day when this bell rings it is a symbol of our pledge to serve the investor, with new standards, new leadership and a renewed commitment to being the best market on earth.”
The past year has not been a feel-good year for the Big Board and its members. Former chairman and CEO Grasso was booted amidst revelations of a $188 million pay package, and the exchange’s central traders spent more than a year locked in battle with the SEC and the NYSE over whether they cheated clients.
The ad seeks to leave all that behind and focus on “new standards, new leadership and a renewed commitment to being the best market on earth” – a message former Goldman Sachs co-president John Thain has taken to clients and customers since he took over in January.
The ad also hints at the NYSE’s most significant challenge: the fight to maintain trading rules that allow it to maintain an almost 80 percent market share in the stocks its trades.
By displaying images of tough competition – a runner in a race, a fierce soccer game – it seeks to convey that the exchange embraces competition.
And that it really likes bells.