THERE’S only one set of people that finance firms have thrown money at more willingly than subprime borrowers in recent years and that’s ad execs. And a fat lot of good it’s done them.

Even in these straitened times, they are seldom off the TV and their spots are seldom anything other than awful.

At the moment there’s a particularly horrid series for E-Trade featuring a baby day trader getting freaky with his girlfriend via text message. “Bad girl,” he says and shivers. Me too. Makes me feel abused every time it’s on.

A lot of those snappy slogans, supposed to inspire confidence, are now looking sad. AIG’s official slogan was “The strength to be there”. Lehman Brothers used “Where vision gets built”, and Merrill Lynch: “At Merrill Lynch we’re bullish on the future.”

A friend has a Bear Stearns mug printed with “Integrity, Commitment, Respect, Diversity, Innovation, Resolve and Excellence”. How much did someone get paid for that?

The credit crisis has been no respecter of borders, let alone slogans and has left its fair share of bloopers on the other side of the Atlantic.

There’s that awful Bradford & Bingley ad where the hopes and dreams of commuters float out of their heads in ghostly script — “I want my own home”, “I need a garden”. As a gust from a train scrambles all the letters, a girl asks: “Aren’t hopes and dreams fragile?” Then donning a bowler hat, she says: “Your dreams could find a home with Bradford & Bingley.”

Then there were the Northern Rock ads with the frog skating on a frozen pond saying: “Whoops. I’m on thin ice.” Or stuck with legs on two lily pads travelling in opposite directions: “Whoops. I’m over- stretched.” Whoops indeed.

Presumably all these ads are to build a brand name and public trust — but when you’re all ad and no money, it doesn’t really work. Last week we were given a demonstration of what real trust and reputation can do.

Warren Buffett has built his career on trust. When he took over troubled Salomon Brothers in 1987 he told bankers: “If you lose money for us, we will be forgiving. If you lose reputation for us, we will be ruthless.”

Now in this latest crisis he has put down $8 billion (€5.7 billion) on two troubled names that until recently had seemed among the most trusted in the US: Goldman Sachs and General Electric.

Goldman Sachs had, briefly, looked like it was the next bank to get shot down following the collapse of Lehman and the hurried sale of Merrill Lynch. Goldman has bounced back nicely thanks in large part to Buffett’s magic touch (and his $5 billion).

General Electric hasn’t yet done as well with its $3 billion. The conglomerate’s slogan is Imagination at Work and unfortunately for GE the stock market’s imagination is still running wild dreaming up scenarios where GE follows fellow finance giants AIG, Fannie, Freddie et al down to dinosaur graveyard.

But that’s the wonder of Warren — he won’t care that GE isn’t firing on all cylinders today or even next week. If Buffett had a slogan it’d have “long term” in it. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t need one.

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