From "Whoo hoo" to "Boo Hoo" and back.

3 November 2008


Ok, maybe you've heard: WaMu went bankrupt.

As in the largest bank failure in U.S. history.

As in, I was S.V.P. Creative Director on a 13 million dollar piece of the account for a wonderful little agency in the Silicon Valley—and now I am not.

Anyhoo...

How was I to know that "sub-prime" loans were devil spawn? They seemed like the American Dream made accessible for anyone. Buy a house with no money down? Without having to prove your income? I couldn't wait to get the ads out the door. And when I wasn't working on the ads, I was touting the benefits to anyone who would listen. As smart as I sometimes hope I might be, I had no idea of the consequences.

Who could have ever imagined that a perfect financial storm would take down a bank that's been around over 100 years?

Not me.

Despite the rumors and naysayers, WaMu peeps acted like it was business as usual. We kept cranking out work at a rate that is truly unprecedented in my career. But after Lehman collapsed and AIG started taking government handouts, my team and I began to externalize our angst, writing sarcastic headlines like "We used to give loans. Now we need one. Whoo hoo!" I began to check msnbc.com every 10 seconds for news on WaMu's imminent demise. I knew the happy days were close to an end.

It's tough to see a brand you love dying. Within a few hours of the J.P. Morgan Chase takeover, the WaMu website had been jacked up by a yucky retail-y Chase announcement that violated the brand's voice, look, feel, templates, and color palette. It actually made me a little weepy. And yes, I know that sounds silly, as it is just a brand, not a person—but WaMu was my baby for the last 2 years.

When I first saw the genius brand bible Wolff Olins created, I fell instantly in love. It was friendly, conversational, warm, funny and broke all banking advertising conventions. But for some reason, other creatives didn't find it as easy to interpret, so I wrote a "How to WaMu" guide to help my team get the vibe. Explaining the "do's and don'ts" of the brand in a more expanded, detailed and fun format, it was quite a compliment to find out WaMu relied on my little guide to help train their internal teams and other agencies.

I had many adventures with the brand, many lost weekends deeply entrenched in creating annual reports, trade show booths, email blasts, ad campaigns and the like—and I loved (almost) every second of it.

But now I must bury my baby! It's going the way of J.P. Morgan...and soon all those candy-colored WaMu ads will be replaced by the trillion dollar, stodgy behemoth that is Chase.

So what's next?

Well, contrary to what my hilarious best friend keeps saying, I don't need to repent for single-handedly take down the banking industry with bad advertising. I swear, it wasn't me.

I'm just looking for another brand to call my own.


Lissa Walker
Copywriter/Creative Director
Los Angeles, CA
www.walkercopywriting.com