"And Dennis Hopper manages to sell out in his own annoyingly inimitable way, pimping for AmeriPrise Financial retirement funds by betraying whatever principles Easy Rider might once have had embodied."
• Using iconic, nostalgic personalities. Financial services firm Ameriprise Financial tapped Dennis Hopper for its recent ad campaign.
Hopper isn't a baby boomer - he's 70 - but boomers see the actor as "an older brother who's been out there," says Doug Pippin, a creative director at Ameriprise ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi.
"He's lived true to himself, and he's proved that you can do this your way."
Pippin calls Hopper a "great anti-hero hero," who "stands for unconventional thinking."
There was some risk, given Hopper's history of gritty movie roles, including the drug-smuggling motorcycle rider in the 1969 boomer classic Easy Rider and a mad bomber in 1994's Speed.
"Of course, when you go with a celebrity, you have to be concerned ... but we did a significant amount of testing prior to going with Dennis. He tested really well," says Kim Sharan, Ameriprise's chief marketing officer.
The ads scored low overall with adults surveyed by Ad Track, USA Today's weekly poll. But of the target boomer-age consumers - adults born from 1946 through 1964 -about half liked the ad "a lot" or "somewhat," and 79 percent rated the ads "very effective" or "somewhat effective."
"We know that these ads are striking a chord," Sharan says. "Financial services is a pretty staid field, so we wanted to bring a tone and personality that is more emotionally driven."
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• Using iconic, nostalgic personalities. Financial services firm Ameriprise Financial tapped Dennis Hopper for its recent ad campaign.
Hopper isn't a baby boomer - he's 70 - but boomers see the actor as "an older brother who's been out there," says Doug Pippin, a creative director at Ameriprise ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi.
"He's lived true to himself, and he's proved that you can do this your way."
Pippin calls Hopper a "great anti-hero hero," who "stands for unconventional thinking."
There was some risk, given Hopper's history of gritty movie roles, including the drug-smuggling motorcycle rider in the 1969 boomer classic Easy Rider and a mad bomber in 1994's Speed.
"Of course, when you go with a celebrity, you have to be concerned ... but we did a significant amount of testing prior to going with Dennis. He tested really well," says Kim Sharan, Ameriprise's chief marketing officer.
The ads scored low overall with adults surveyed by Ad Track, USA Today's weekly poll. But of the target boomer-age consumers - adults born from 1946 through 1964 -about half liked the ad "a lot" or "somewhat," and 79 percent rated the ads "very effective" or "somewhat effective."
"We know that these ads are striking a chord," Sharan says. "Financial services is a pretty staid field, so we wanted to bring a tone and personality that is more emotionally driven."
- dave 4-01-2007 12:59 am