You can be forgiven for thinking Michael Bolton might not be the best spokesperson for an online trading platform aimed at young people. Bolton, born in 1953, is decidedly not a young person. Nor is he known to have widespread following among the young.
But old things are sometimes given new life when adopted by young people. Think mom jeans.
More importantly, old things -- particularly celebrities of a certain age -- can be seen as funny and quirky. Think of Ratt in the recent Geico commercial.
And funny and quirky works well in social media. So it’s no surprise that the vice president of marketing for Public.com would turn to Bolton for a social campaign aimed at promoting the online broker to traders who had their hearts broken by Robinhood. Nor is it surprising that Adweek would single out that VP for a profile about the campaign. The ad is memorable.
The ad is also part of a larger trend in which both new online brokers and established players seek to cash in the Robinhood craze, according to Investment News.
For example, Fidelity Investments -- founded in 1946 and no one’s idea of hip and young -- hosted an hour long discussion on Reddit when Robinhood came under fire.
And at least one celebrity -- Ice Cube -- is fighting against Robinhood without fighting for any particular rival. Ice Cube called the platform a scam and filed a lawsuit alleging it used his image without permission, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
