Membership Has Its Privileges
Like most activity on the New York Stock Exchange, Friday’s highly publicized decision to relax a 205-year-old trading floor dress code was driven by the profit motive.
Gap Inc. drew heavy media coverage by giving away khaki pants and casual shirts to thousands of button-down traders, specialists and clerks who typically wear suits and ties. Gap used the marketing gimmick to kick off an advertising campaign aimed at expanding its share of the casual clothing market.
Dozens of television news crews wandered through the dressed-down exchange on Friday while Gap’s film crews cranked away on footage for possible commercials.
Casual Friday was part of what NYSE executives describe as the growing recognition that what’s good for member companies can also help burnish the exchange’s image.
“When people see our listed companies doing things on the floor, they also see us,” said NYSE Vice President Bob Zito. “And when any listed company wants floor footage [for advertising], we welcome them.”
Traditionalists might shiver at the thought of using a center of the capitalistic world for the crass purpose of making money. But exchanges now market themselves aggressively through all types of media.
“People see that this isn’t your father’s NYSE,” Zito said. “We’re very serious here, and we trade $25 billion daily. But we’re not stiffs. I’d say 75% of our people were wearing the clothes out there today.”
Earlier this week, Planet Hollywood celebrated its listing on the NYSE by inviting Demi Moore, Sylvester Stallone and Whoopi Goldberg to mingle on the NYSE floor.
“That drew coverage from outlets like ‘Entertainment Tonight,’ which typically don’t cover us,” Zito said. “That got our name, our brand, out in front of people who might not normally see us.”
Cadbury Schweppes has distributed candy bars, Gateway 2000 Inc. herded in a spotted cow and Harley Davidson executives brought along a motorcycle. Sony Inc. once filled Broad Street with sand and invited traders to go up against Olympic-level athletes on regulation-style volleyball courts.
But Casual Friday was by far the largest single marketing event staged at the NYSE, Zito said.
As a rule, companies listed on the NYSE don’t pay for the right to market themselves on the floor. Gap didn’t pay the NYSE to stage the casual Friday promotion.
The NYSE and other exchanges around the country limit use of their floors to listed companies. Executives at different exchanges said decorum must be maintained and trading can’t be interrupted by the marketing shenanigans.
In 1993, the San Francisco-based Pacific Stock Exchange let AirTouch Communications celebrate its listing by draping a huge cellular telephone on each of the landmark statues flanking its entrance.
“We will work with listed companies on what they want to do,” PSE spokesman Morrison Shafroth said. “But I can guarantee that something like the NYSE did today wouldn’t have happened just a few years ago.”
Oddly enough, Gap’s casual look isn’t welcome during the NYSE’s normal trading day because men are required to wear suits and ties. But khaki would be acceptable at PSE locations in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“For some of our guys on the options floor, khaki would be a step up,” Shafroth said. You have lots of people jumping up and down and screaming. It’s pretty casual. You can wear jeans but you can’t have holes in them.”
PSE traders in Los Angeles who watched the NYSE action on television monitors invited Gap to truck down extra apparel to the exchange floor.
“What they did at the NYSE looked like fun when we watched it on CNBC,” said Brad Goforth, a Crowell Weedon trader in Los Angeles. “And, in case they’re interested, I’m wearing Banana Republic pants and a Land’s End shirt.”
Gap’s shares closed up a fashionable 25 cents at $50.25 in NYSE trading on Friday.
