Wells Fargo: Who Cares About Teachers? They don't.

There is a commercial running for Wells Fargo bank right now that gets under my skin. The premise is a public school teacher who can't seem to save money because her job -- educating America's children -- actually eats into her income, as she has to buy teaching supplies out of her own pocket.

No problem! Wells Fargo to the rescue.

Yes, but they're not there to help her with the cost of the classroom supplies, but rather to help her SAVE -- by rounding up the amount of her purchases and then transferring that money from her checking account to her savings account. Wow. That IS helpful.

This ad and the conceit that drives it put on display the shameful state of our public school system, which forces teachers to foot the bill for the extras they need to provide engaging classroom experiences for their students -- our kids, and the Big Brand Banking mentality that not only should this be accepted as the status quo, it should be tacitly encouraged. We're supposed to believe that banking institutions are stepping up to teachers, our education system -- and our kids, to really help out. Unfortunately, the promise is not what it seems; the help is a hollow, self-serving gesture, because it's simply putting forth a mechanism for them to save their own money at Wells Fargo.

And obviously, in today's America, no money-making concern like a huge bank has responsibility to help that teacher (and those students) out in any other ways, such as an initiative for the bank to round up its transactions and give the resulting money to schools. That is left to individuals, charities (such as DonorsChoose), and, oh yeah, TEACHERS.

So while this commercial attempts to persuade us that Wells Fargo is a "people's bank" -- caring, human-scale, customer-oriented -- it fails miserably. Each time I see it I am struck with the nauseating awareness that banks in general and Wells Fargo in particular are out of touch with their customers...at least their average paycheck-to-paycheck customers.

Saving by rounding up is great for a person with disposable income who lacks the follow-through discipline of transferring money from one account to another. It's not for many teachers, who generously spend their thin margin of barely disposable income on vital classroom supplies. What they need is actual HELP. And not the pretend brand-based, Wells Fargo-marketing-manager-imagined version of help. They need the kind of help that is currently offered by individuals, pro-public-school charities, community-minded businesses, and, oh yeah, in theory, our government.