Is That Really All You Need?

Chase credit cards have got a new ad campaign going. They've licensed a song from the Michael Jackson collection, and I guess he could do with the folding money. You may remember that Michael owns song catalogues from other writers than just himself. Like Paul McCartney, I really wish he didn't own the Beatles' Lennon & McCartney Northern Song catalogue. It seems almost twenty years ago that he licensed "Revolution" to Nike, and that caused quite a few complaints, but I guess his money problems got the better of him, so he's at it again. Chase is now using "All You Need Is Love" to sell its credit cards. That seems disingenuous to me. I think they really need more than love from their customers. If I run up a big credit card bill and just tried to repay them in love, I expect they'd foreclose on my ass. It's too bad nobody at Chase thought to use the Rutles' charmer, "All You Need Is Cash," instead. We're all under no illusion that this isn't the true subtext of the Chase campaign.