On May 6, 1999, the Financial Communications Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to the improvement of professional standards in financial communications, awarded Morgan Stanley's Discover Brokerage Direct advertising campaign "Best of Show" and "Best Print Campaign, Consumer Retail" at the society's annual Portfolio Awards.^TM Discover Brokerage and its ad agency Black Rocket received the awards for recognition as the best in financial services advertising.

Discover Brokerage and Black Rocket won Best of Show for the television commercial "Tow Truck," which employs humor and irony to demonstrate that online investing is not just for businessmen, but accessible to everyone — even Al the tow truck driver, the commercial's lead character. The advertisement was selected from over 300 entries from banks, securities firms, exchanges, mutual funds, investment advisors, accounting and insurance firms across the U.S., Canada and Europe.

The client/agency team also tied for Best Print Campaign, Consumer Retail for "You Are the CEO of Your Life," "Look Out Wall Street Here Comes Main Street" and "Filthy Stinking Rich," which portrays Discover Brokerage as the online brokerage for responsible, self-directed investors.

"We're excited to receive recognition from our peers in financial services who recognize that you can successfully reach the responsible self-directed investor through humor," said Glenn Tom of Discover Brokerage marketing. The judges for the Financial Communications Society Portfolio Awards comprised senior marketing officers from leading financial services corporations, including Chase Manhattan Bank, VISA USA, Merrill Lynch, MasterCard International and others. According to the FCS release announcing the winners, "The FCS Portfolio Awards honors the best creative solutions to marketing and advertising challenges in financial services, an industry that spends over $2 billion a year on advertising. Since its inception in 1995, the FCS Portfolio Awards have become a major annual event, with 500 industry executives attending every year since 1996."

Discover Brokerage's television advertising campaign also helped Black Rocket earn a San Francisco Ad Club Cable Car Award and Advertising Age's Bobby Award for Best Actor in a television commercial. The campaign is also nominated for the Magazine Publishers of America's Kelly Award, which recognizes the best in magazine advertising.

Black Rocket is a San Francisco-based full-service advertising agency that maintains a high-profile client base including Discover Brokerage, Yahoo!, Wired Magazine and Buy.com.