Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary - 47

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The Right Tagline
1997 The familiar four-hands logo

THE NEW YORK TIMES

has been part of OppenheimerFunds'
identity since 1964 (see page 20), but
it took more than 30 years for the Firm
to add a tagline to its brand. The resulting slogan was as apt a fit with the
Company's underlying values as the
logo that it joined.
The Right Way to Invest first appeared as the OppenheimerFunds
tagline in 1997. The Company started
working with Ron Berger, a partner
with the advertising firm Messner
Berger Vetere McNamee Schmetterer
Euro RSCG (now Euro RSCG), in 1995
to develop the tagline at a time when
financial markets were in turmoil. In a

1997 interview with The New York Times,
Berger recalled that OppenheimerFunds
was looking to convey the message that "if
you're in the market, you ought to be in it
for the long haul." A decade later, on the
PBS program Wall Street Week, he reflected
on the slogan's success and longevity.
"We've basically been running the same
advertising campaign for the last 10 years,
which is totally unusual in this category,
where people change their campaigns
from one year to the next," he said.
Capturing the Company's focus on
principled investing as a bedrock component of its investment strategy, The
Right Way to Invest has always been more
than just an advertising slogan. "We are a

the times, the Company was able to steer clear of the
excesses and questionable practices that also characterized the latter half of the 1990s at some businesses,
thanks to the culture of integrity that has been a
fundamental part of the Firm since its earliest days.
"The most important thing for this Company is our
core values: caring, integrity, teamwork, excellence,"
said Richard Knott, president, OppenheimerFunds
Distributor. "We live by it." In 1997, at a time when
most of the investment world was falling under the
spell of a rapidly expanding technology bubble, the
Company summed up its approach with the tagline
The Right Way to Invest (see sidebar, above).
Leon Levy described what that period was like
in his book, The Mind of Wall Street: "The collective
madness that seized investors in the 1990s provides
the most persuasive evidence of the role of psychology in markets. After all, this was a period during
which even the most sophisticated investors willingly
Jerry Yang and David Filo
launch Yahoo!

1995

1995
The last independent television
network, CBS, is bought.

company with a values-based approach,"
said Bruce Dunbar, director of corporate
communications. "Our message came out
of our culture." Not only does the phrase
embody the way the Company consistently conducts business on behalf of the
advisors and investors it serves, but it also
succinctly captures the commitment of
OppenheimerFunds employees to the
Firm's Principles of Investing, which shape
how the Company approaches the markets and manages money. It is also a tacit
acknowledgement of OppenheimerFunds'
reputation for investment excellence,
established over a half century of providing
strong long-term results, even in the most
difficult market conditions. n

suspended their sense of disbelief and, perhaps even
more astonishing, dismissed facts and figures staring
them in the face." As Levy noted, that disconnect with
reality was not limited to Internet and technology
stocks. Companies in all sectors of the economy were
turning their backs on what he said were "increasingly considered stuffy and outmoded notions about
what constituted earnings."

A NEW GROWTH STRATEGY
Despite a slowdown in the overall growth rate of
the U.S. economy, OppenheimerFunds had clearly
committed itself to a strategy of growth by 1995, a
year of record stock prices and falling interest rates.
Underlining the Company's commitment to its
reenergized growth strategy, OppenheimerFunds
acquired the assets of a dozen funds from Quest for
Value Advisors.
The acquisition from Quest for Value Advisors
included six equity funds (Quest for Value Fund,
OppenheimerFunds purchases Rochester Funds advisory
business and establishes a specialized management and
marketing group in Rochester.

1996

1995-2000 Acquisition and Expansion

* 47
Oppenheimer 60th Anniversary

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