Women As Customers

Advertising

As women gained economic power managing personal and family finances, banks developed advertising and products aimed specifically at female customers who valued efficiency, safety and convenience. Banks also advertised directly to women.
“Does Beauty Attract Women Rather Than Reason?” asked The Solicitor, Wachovia Bank & Trust Company’s magazine.  In the eyes of women, stated the editor, “the inside appearance of this bank must be pleasing and satisfying.” But  more important than nice amenities, the most important thing was provide a safe place for financial affairs:

Will you bank with us because we afford more protection, more complete methods, more different means of helping you in handling money matters, or will you be governed by the appearance of the bank building?

The Solicitor included regular items encouraging women to open and maintain bank accounts, whether they earned wages or managed household funds. It also ran items encouraging husbands to “allow” their wives to open savings accounts. “Many women are our bank customers because of our habit of taking pains to make banking transactions easy and pleasant for them” said one item in The Solicitor in 1912.

Assuring prospective woman customers that Wachovia could meet all their banking needs, The Solicitor made its point:

We want women depositors. We have the beauty to attract attention in our building, but we believe the best reach the women we must appeal to their reason, showing them that greater strength, more varied service, more experience and a greater desire to serve them will induce them to use this bank in the handling of household and other matters calling for the use of money.