In New Ads, Brokerages Offering Calm Guidance for Jittery Investors

As the stock market continues its turbulent ride, some leading investment firms are adjusting their advertising pitches aimed at jittery investors.

In a fresh batch of print and television ads inspired by the market’s historic gyrations, brokerage firms are at turns preaching calm, offering advice and touting alternatives to stocks, such as bonds.

Prudential Insurance Co. of America has responded to the market’s wild ride with five print ads, a television spot and two billboard ads targeting befuddled investors. The message, according to Prudential Marketing Vice President Michael Hines, is that the insurance and brokerage firm stands ready to help investors make sense of the confusion.

Other investment firms have taken up a similar cry. Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co., a full-service brokerage, leaped into the fray with ads offering investment advice.

“This is no time to go it alone,” declared one ad that seemed aimed at discount brokerage customers, who typically do their own research. “Call Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.”

Investment firms say it’s important to get their ads in front of investors at a time when the stock market is at the top of their minds. At the same time, though, investment firms say they don’t expect their ads to produce an immediate surge in business--though most print ads contain a toll-free number.

“We’re trying to develop an image and awareness that we have the expertise,” Hines said.

Fidelity Investments, a mutual fund and brokerage firm, described its ads urging investors not to panic as a “public service.”

“We’re telling people . . . don’t do anything rash. It’s not a good idea to sell [because] generally big drops are followed by surges back up,” said Fidelity Marketing Vice President Stephen A. Cone. “It’s not meant to drum up business.”

Boston-based Fidelity was among the first investment firms out with ads responding to the market’s turmoil. It had prepared in advance an ad to use when the Dow Jones industrial average plummets by 500 or more points. When the Dow dropped a record-breaking 512.61 points Aug. 31, Fidelity took its ad from storage and ran it in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal the following day.

“Today is one of those days when experience matters most,” said the ad, whose single illustration was a generic newspaper with a headline indicating the Dow had dropped 512 points.

“We weren’t hoping for a 500-point drop,” Cone said. “We know in the past there have been major ups and downs, and we wanted to be ready for that.”

Fidelity followed the print ad with television commercials in which investment guru Peter Lynch and entertainer Lily Tomlin discuss volatile markets. The spots are part of a broader advertising campaign that Fidelity launched last week.

In the spots, Tomlin, playing characters from her stint on “Laugh-In,” banters about investments with the personable Lynch. One ad invites investors to take a financial stress test and obtain a guide from Fidelity.

Cone believes investors are open to Fidelity’s lighthearted approach despite the market’s nail-biting unpredictability.

“I don’t think a doom-and-gloom message is something people are receptive to,” Cone said. “People will enjoy listening to the message. . . . I think the volatility is an extremely timely occurrence for this campaign.”

Prudential, which prepared its ads in-house in a single week--an impressive feat in a business that typically takes several weeks or months to prepare campaigns--took a sober approach. The Newark, N.J.-based company’s type-heavy print ads offered advice, pitched its bond funds and discussed “capital preservation.” Its TV spot consists of random, man-on-the-street interviews with investors and comments from Michael Caufield, chief executive of the firm’s Prudential Investments unit.

“Today’s investor is more sophisticated than ever,” said Hines, explaining Prudential’s straightforward approach. “They want information.”