Caroline Aiken Koster: How About Some Super Bowl Ads That Promote Something Actually Useful: Financial Literacy?

It’s too late to buy a 2023 Super Bowl advertising slot — Fox Sports reports the slots, some topping $7 million for 30 seconds, are all sold out. Beer and celebrity snacks are in. “Spokescandies” They are now available.

Also out are the financial pitches of last year’s “Crypto Bowl.” I’m a securities lawyer, so this is a relief for me, at least at my doctor’s visits. I’m hoping less hype will tame the appeal of complicated schemes for hard-working folk like my favorite nurse at NYU Hospital. He routinely pumps the blood pressure cuff — and me — for get-rich-quick schemes.

“Hola, Mama,” He says, and he’ll take me to the scale. “Got any tips for me? I need to make a quick buck.”

“Fundamentals,” I agree. “Study the market like you monitor my A1C and iron levels.” He didn’t know what he was thinking. Maybe he’d listen to Kim Kardashian.

Alas, we likely won’t see my dream 30-second spot on Sunday: a celebrity mash-up a la BandAid’s “We Are the World” Financial literacy is a must. My fantasies feature yacht rock and household names singing verses about good financial hygiene.

Tom Brady can still trill “compound interest is the GOAT.” DJ Khaled raps “70 equities and 30 bonds — that’s percent baby.” Floyd Mayweather hollers “take your 401(k) and your 529 to the max — or else.”

Ooh, there’s Steven Seagal, chanting “double up your mortgage payments now and then.” Get sashayed like a Kardashian. “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”–Style her in cranberry satin, elbow-length gloves and twinkles finger wagging. ‘”Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

The bridge: Sam Bankman Fried, those Winkelvoss Twins, float down in an angelic chorus. “Educate, educate yourself,” Gary Gensler, chairman of Securities and Exchange Commission in Hawaiian shirt.

Cut to a QR code like last year’s retro Coinbase pong screen driving clicks to a national high-school finance curriculum and “Schoolhouse Rock”–style elementary-school campaign. A hundred million viewers log in. The crown roars. It breaks the Internet! Virtual touchdown!

Yes, it’s a fantasy. Perhaps Activision Blizzard (home of Candy Crush and Call of Duty) will gamify the idea.

I cast this motley lineup since they all participated in America’s recent mainstream crypto craze. Some starred in last year’s advertising, others own bankrupt financial enterprises or settled with the SEC for online pitching. Bankman-Fried was also arrested for financial fraud. Collapse of FTX Brady last year pitched it. Activision’s not crypto but it just paid $35 million for misleading disclosures about executive bad guys.

Why not apply for high-profile positions? “finfluencers” and their billions of followers in a national literacy campaign that will reset our next generation’s financial future? The 2022 TIAA Institute GFLEC Personal Finance Indicator It indicates “Americans function with a poor level of financial literacy” — with US adults, on average, correctly answering only 50% of 28 basic money questions, and 23% of respondents only answering seven questions correctly, the worst in any survey year.  

Online resources are available from the FDIC and SEC. Gensler shared an educational video featuring creepy men. “Risky Business” sunglasses in Kardashian’s EthereumMax settlement, but it’s no match for 350 million followers and sleek, curated brands. The Council for Economic Education’s 2022 survey of K-12 economic and financial education Find it A course in economics is required to graduate from 25 states, but only nine universities do so. Please enter You can take it as a stand-alone course, or you can add 14 to your required coursework. The required category could include several New York bills.

My husband learned finance skills while on the Eagle Scout path. Like the shoemaker’s kids going barefoot, my own kids did not have a standalone course in their Brooklyn private school. One of my high school students took an elective course on investing from a nighttime MBA teacher. I compensate for this with boring lectures and books.

We pour energy into polarized issues like banned books, critical race theory, transgender restrooms and sports — issues marginal to most working folk’s daily bread. Meanwhile, what’s more nonpartisan, fact-based, race-blind and beneficial to national success than teaching useful life skills? 

We could debate for a while budgeting, credit scores. Savings — even a small emergency fund — offers documented mental-health benefits.

I offer the following to our leaders: Matt Damon’s wisdom In a cringey 2022 crypto.com ad: “Fortune favors the brave.” Come on, President Joe Biden, Congress and state legislators — and fellow Americans who care about our nation’s success. It’s time to focus on financial literacy. Let’s sing it together now: “Educate, educate yourself.”

This time next year, let’s play offense and develop jazzed-up branding focused on a financial-literacy playbook that breaks the Internet.

Touchdown!

Caroline Aiken Koster is a Brooklyn resident who is currently writing a memoir about Kentucky roots and universal stories that resonate with all Americans.