Sunday's Detroit Paper and Sunday's New York Times each published page after page of advertisements for Ally Financial. This is the former GMAC financial corporation that dates from 1913. I think that Ally is about the fourth largest financial holding company in the country and is, I believe, headquartered in the Philip Johnson Comerica building near Campus Martius.
What is Ally Financial trying to do with that expensive advertising? They do not tell you how to set up an account at thier large on-line bank. They do not tell you what number to
call if you want to originate a mortgage loan or a new car loan. Nor do those advertisements tell you how to uses their brokerage services. What is the aim of these advertisements?
Having lived in southeast Michigan since the 1960s, I have
heard dozens of call for Michigan to diversify its economic base so as to prosper in an era when durable good manufacturing is not sufficient to spur high rates of economic growth. I never imaged that Detroit and southeast Michigan would become a national center for banking and financial services. Three of the nation's largest firms in that industry- Quicken, Ally and Huntington Bank - have their headquarters within walking distance on Woodward and United Wholesale Mortgage - the nation' second largest mortgage originator - is close by in Pontiac.