Goldman Sachs Runs U.S. Ad Campaign Emphasizing Job Creation

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which agreed in July to pay $550 million to settle a U.S. regulator’s fraud suit, rolled out an advertising campaign today with ads that emphasize the firm’s role in alternative energy and job creation.

The ads began in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and will extend to other national, regional and local newspapers during the next few months, said David Wells, a spokesman for the New York firm.

Goldman Sachs, the most profitable U.S. securities firm in Wall Street history, is trying to repair a reputation tarnished by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s suit and an April U.S. Senate hearing at which it was accused of betting against the investments sold to clients. The ads will feature different descriptions of the firm’s business and also appear on the Internet.

“We’re expanding our communication to a broader audience in an effort to promote a better understanding of who we are and what we do,” Wells said. “The ads show how we support our clients, including corporations, municipalities, institutions and individuals.”

In today’s full-page ads, a photo of a field of wind turbines under a cloudy sky is juxtaposed with a picture of a smiling man in a hard hat and work clothes. The ad, carrying the tag line “Progress is Everyone’s Business,” describes how the firm helped an unidentified renewable energy company find investors, enabling it to expand and create jobs.

‘Mealy-Mouthed’

“It’s like they’re apologizing for being bad boys,” said Jerry Della Femina, chairman and chief executive officer of Della Femina/Jeary and Partners in New York, who has worked in the ad industry since the 1960s. The ad is “too weak, too wimpy, too mealy-mouthed,” he said.

“The people who don’t like them and the people who don’t respect them are not going to have their opinion changed by looking at this,” he said. “The people who do like them and respect them may see them as a bit diminished.”

Wells declined to disclose the budget for the campaign, which is being handled by Young & Rubicam Inc., a division of Dublin-based WPP Plc.

Goldman Sachs shares fell $2.30, or 1.6 percent, to $142.71 at 10 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. They have declined 15.5 percent this year compared with a 2.6 percent gain in the S&P 500 Index.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alec McCabe at amccabe@bloomberg.net.