Advertising: Jumping naked off a cliff edge? That will do nicely

Membership had its privileges. It said more about you than cash ever could. And that did nicely. In the golden age of corporate-ish Wannabe that crossed over with early Yuppie, American Express defined the entrance level of the modern world. The world of Cosmocrats and globalists and better-end business travel people who stayed, at the very least, in Sheratons and Hiltons across the world rather than a rep's hotel in Bury. And of people who loved the life, thought of themselves as players and loved Amex for dramatising their Club Class status back to them in such an attractive way.

Through the Eighties and Nineties Amex produced many variants with go-faster stripes. Gold cards and platinum ones. And wasn't there a black card for the seriously high-net-worth?

And a Groovy-Boy cut-price one too - the equivalent of a pay-as-you-go mobile. I got confused. But the central theme was still clear enough. Blokes and lady-blokes and business travel, with some associated services - insurance and information and hire-cars - is how I remember it.

But now Amex has gone all New Age Third Age. It's talking about people it never acknowledged before, people without jobs - retirees. And it's on about products it never mentioned before: savings-ey, pension-ey stuff. The stuff every other financial services house in town offers. The stuff you don't trust now.

Amex is following the Harley-Davidson route. Or is it BMW motorbikes? Anyway that bike ad that says something like "sooner or later your old drives and juices reassert themselves" (and you do something amazingly silly that makes young women laugh at you).

The commercial's about John and his dreams. He's on a desert island. He's shot through leaves - great exotic leaves.

At 17, upcoming wage-slave, he wanted to buy a suit. At 35, he wanted a handmade suit. But now, running through the green, he seems to be taking it off. Age 52, burn suit. Take off your clothes and live.

To a Thirties whistling Lonesome Pine-ish sort of backing track, he's crashing around taking bits off like a man ready to be sectioned. And then he's jumping naked off the cliff into the sea below, swimming in the sun-shimmery water. "Long live dreams" says the sign- off. And the voiceover's muttering something deadly about "the range of financial services and products/ ... and ISAs /prepare for the life you want to live". It reminds you of Allied Dunbar 10 years ago.

Does Amex think a generation of retiring businessmen will look to the brand to understand them better in their new lives than the Bradford & Bingley or the Cheltenham and Gloucester ever would? Can it stretch to this new market?

But it all sounds like a terrible comedown.

peter@sru.co.uk