WELLS FARGO

By Ian Vlahakis

            Wells Fargo & Co. is an American international financial services company. The company headquarters is located in San Francisco, California.

            The advertisement features a Latin-American man traveling across a quintessentially “American” landscape. The man’s profession is free-lance trucking. He drives past rolling green licked hills, stands at the edges of sweeping canyons, careens through the American interstate system, and stands adjacent to powerfully spinning wind turbines. The imagery evokes the motion and splendor of being “on the road” in America. His productive wayfaring is within the canon of American rootlessness. The nationalized pastime of road tripping. The color of the man’s truck is red with a blank white trailer, and when the truck is set against a blue vacant sky there is an orgy of patriotic color. He even passes a ranch with two cowboy looking men on horseback who are trotting around an enclosure. During the man’s travels he stops, from time to time, to pick up the sturdy-bony texture of certain stones. Each rock represents a place he has traveled. He writes the initial of the state on the stone’s surface. The narrative of the commercial shows the man is saving these rocks for his daughter. When the Latin-American man returns home, to his equally Latin-American daughter, he presents these stones as souvenirs of his travels. And then the patient, conspicuously maternal, voice of the spokeswoman reads a few lines of copy: “You work hard for more than just you. Working together we’ll help you save for her future geology degree.” These words are followed by the tag line, “Together we’ll go far.” This moment is followed by Wells Fargo’s brand image—the horse drawn stagecoach. The stagecoach glides across the rugged American plains.

            The narrative of the commercial acts as a tender vehicle for communicating what Wells Fargo is all about—planning for future security. The wandering journey of the man shows him literally going places. Those images act as a metaphor for his daughter’s eventual going places—her geology degree. The viewer understands that the father literally goes far so that his daughter will metaphorically go far in life. This story, of father and daughter, works hard to show Wells Fargo’s investment in these character’s lives, without even showing a bank. This leads to the first charge leveled at this commercial—“The Privation of History.”

            This commercial manages to sell a bank without showing, or even referencing a bank. There are no long lines to the teller to stand in. There are no glossily smiling websites to be interacted with. There are no ATM’s to plastically penetrate.

            In addition, this commercial elegantly sidesteps the recent scandal that plagued Wells Fargo. CNN Money reported in September of 2016, “federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts—without their customers knowing it—since 2011. The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures…” Wells Fargo, in an effort to boost sales figure, created false accounts for real costumers. The accounts came with a whole slew of fees. This commercial makes no reference or nod to their mismanaging of public trust, but insists that they are invested in the futures of their customers.

            The more insidious privation of history comes in the condescending attitude the commercial takes toward Latin-Americans. The rough, hardworking protagonist is searching for stability and weight in this American landscape. The stones provide a good metaphor. He is searching to be tied down to something. This tether is his daughter who will one day seek her place in American cultural heroics. Many of these notions resonate with the iconic “American Dream” and other nationalized fictions. The narrative depicts the man traveling to Colorado, Arizona, and Wyoming (the initials are listed on the rocks). All three states are formerly part of Mexico. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded this land to the United States Federation in 1848. The land ceded also included California, where Wells Fargo is based. The image that represents Wells Fargo as a brand is the stage coach. The stage coach that comes at the close of the commercial is diabolical. The scene directly evokes Manifest Destiny: the Manifest Destiney that redrew the border and took sovereign land from Mexico. The commercial insists on granting an urgent place for the rootless Latin-American family in America, while the ad simultaneously, if unconsciously, promotes ideas concerning manifest destiny, the chapter in American history that evicted all Mexican claim to place in America. The stagecoach is the most flagrant image of this paradox, but the commercial’s philosophy is also malignant with manifest destiny. The hard work and will power of the father ought to prevail. His work ethic will rear the dream of his daughter’s future. Wells Fargo is merely the security. 

            The use of a Latin-American father daughter combo is timely. Our recent political situation is rapidly moving to entrench the border between the U.S. and Latin-America. Current policy initiatives are working to amplify the power of border patrols, and to deport undocumented Latinos at record rates. The future for Latin-Americans in the United States is bleak, and yet, who will people turn to in this unsettling time—Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo will further assimilate the outsider into “Americanness,” and they, as a banking company, are working to inaugurate your future generations into the American educational caste system. The man’s daughter will have the means, if he saves his earnings, to go pursue a geology degree. It’s a classic immigrant story. The first generation works hard, saves, and invests in their children’s upward mobility. Wells Fargo stands with you. This commercial attempts to inoculate the viewer to the insidious political climate for Latin-Americans. The use of the Latin family, and their heart-string tugging story, shows anything is still possible in this America. The narrative can also be interpreted to exploit the latent fears and worries of not being American-enough. The bank shows a representational narrative of the hard-working Latin-man. They deprive a complex history in order to show the man’s ability to assimilate to American petit-bourgeois values. This petit-bourgeois value is the emphasis the American middle class places on education. The unquestioned value of a geological degree in today’s economic climate shows an inclination toward following one’s passions. This idea of pursuing one’s passion is dripping with petit-bourgeois judgment.

            The tag line, “Together we’ll go far,” sums up the Wells Fargo brand ethos. The father traveling far. His daughter rising through the American caste system. The stagecoach. All are related to motion, both, metaphoric and literal. The line is aphoristic and proverbial. This statement caps the commercial and seals any further interrogation of the ad’s narrative. The line is self-complete. Wells Fargo will take you places as these words suggest. The bank is a vehicle to prosperous Americanness. The commercial humanizes the granite-cock bank.