• by Aaron Baar , October 18, 2010

The St. Petersburg, Fla.-based company is launching a new campaign, "Tales of Financial Pragmatism," from Minneapolis advertising agency Martin/Williams. The campaign plays up the company's values of integrity, responsibility and pragmatism through storytelling.

"This campaign has been a year in the making. They are nothing if not deliberate in terms of what they are," Mike Gray, president of Martin/ Williams, tells Marketing Daily. "The inspiration for the campaign is financial pragmatism. It's an answer to the mess we've just come through. When you step back and look at what we've been through, it was an amazing opportunity to express this."

A television commercial that began airing during the American League Championship Series over the weekend depicts "The Woman Who Lived Longer Than Any Person Who Ever Lived." The television commercial tells the story of Emily Skinner, who lives to be 187 years old, yet still lives a vigorous life (she's seen marrying multiple times and the ad closes with her riding a motorcycle), thanks to the planning and pragmatism she enjoyed from Raymond James.

"It's all about being pragmatic and prudent with your money and the decisions you make," Gray says. "Prudence is in vogue. We talk about the new normal and all these adjectives, but here's a company that is about that."

The campaign, which also includes print (one ad uses the headline: "Let's just say we look both ways before we look both ways") and digital components, introduces the tagline "Life well planned."

"It's an expression of the kinds of products that they choose to recommend," Gray says. "In the words of their chief operating officer, they're not going to get their customers into a lot of products that can't be explained to my mother."

The television commercials will run on Sunday evening and Monday morning programs to capture potential customers as they are planning their weeks. Raymond James has also booked a five-week online roadblock of the Wall Street Journal's Web site and will have a presence on The New Yorker's recently launched iPad application.