Continuing in my series of ad analysis articles (see parts 1, & 2), here is another ad I pulled from that same issue of Newsweek. It has really proved to be a rich vein to mine. I have some other magazines I will be putting on the chopping block soon as well.

This is a fairly classic word substitution technique found in lots of advertisements, though usually not quite so blatant as this. You simply take another word and replace it with another, creating a layering and associative linking of meaning, and opening up a space to launch a new mental imprint into. In this case, we see Ameriprise replacing the word “401k” with “dream” for the final text reading something like: “Do you have a 401k dream plan?”

The intended meaning is then created by you in your own brain: “401k = dream.” (See my piece on the definition of the word “is” for more) The fact that you yourself leapt across the void to link those two things together is more effective than if the ad said something like: “Your 401k plan is made up of your dreams.” One is a command to redefine your mental associations, and the other is an invitation to solve a mental puzzle - the reward of which is a redefinition of mental associations. So they rope you into a relationship where they give you clues and you receive an emotional reward for modifying how you think to figure them out.

It is an attempt to enmesh you in a semantic game, a story-system which they control the end result. If you liked the associations they helped you build here, they offer to send you a free book (which I have sent away for and may analyze when I get it if it’s worthwhile). The “Dream Book” itself is part of something called “The New Retirement Mindscape^SM.” This name clearly indicates that what they are selling isn’t just retirement planning, but a new way of thinking about retirement planning.

True to form, this new way of thinking about retirement planning, The New Retirement Mindscape,” was created in conjunction with an “expert” (thereby lending it legitimacy), Dr. Ken Dychtwald founder of a research group called Age Wave. In case Dychtwald’s running a business alone isn’t enough, it’s noted that he worked with Fortune 500 companies. His own website also makes immediately obvious that he has written several books on the subject of aging. Coming from an authority such as this, it’s clear that Ameriprise’s new way of thinking about retirement is backed up with solid science. In other words, you are granted the security of scientific expertise, which in turn allows you to “dream” about your future.

The New Retirement Mindscape page then gives you five handy sequential stages in which you ought to formulate your dreams about the future:

1. Stage 1: Imagination
2. Stage 2: Anticipation
3. Stage 3: Liberation
4. Stage 4: Reorientation
5. Stage 5: Reconciliation

It all sounds very scientific, doesn’t it? Sequential stages! Clever names! Each stage is accompanied by a text description to more fully flesh out the vision of it, photographs to help you emotionally identify, and statistical percentages of peoples’ feelings at each stage of the process to really bring the scientific element back home. Also interesting to note that some of the terms used have a very spiritual-sounding quality about them: “Liberation,” “Reconciliation.” Retirement is not only scientific, but it is an act of coming closer to the divine, if we are to believe what we see on their website.

And of course we should believe it because it is backed up by science and business expertise and all comes to us courtesy of a company whose name many already know and trust. The most logical thing in the world at this point would be to go ahead and accept their New Retirement Mindscape and request that one of their local advisors contact us and bring us on through the rest of the process, so that we can feel safe and secure about our own and our family’s future. Which in turn makes us feel smarter, more responsible and genuinely more at ease about our future. See how nice that all works out?