Donald Thomas; Anchor Banker Chairman who understood
Hyfler/Rosner
January 2, 2006 Monday
SANDY SPRINGS: Donald Thomas, 88, banker known for rhyming
ad slogan
BYLINE: KAY POWELL
Your Anchor Banker, who understands, has died.
For 22 years, Chairman Donald L. Thomas was featured in
Anchor Savings Bank advertising that entered pop culture and
more recently rap music.
"Your Anchor Banker, he understands. Yes, your Anchor
Banker, she understands" was the slogan at the focus of the
company's advertising campaign.
The ads featured Mr. Thomas and his wife, Barbara Thomas, of
Sandy Springs and made them popular culture icons.
As Anchor Bank moved into Georgia from its New York base in
1983, the commercials proliferated on local radio and
television stations.
Sports columnist Furman Bisher, in a 1987 Atlanta
Journal-Constitution Sunday magazine article lampooning TV
ads, asked, "And what is it my Anchor Banker understands?
All these years this guy and this dame with the subway
accent have been promising me that they understand. What,
what, what? Please tell me so I can rest in peace."
Attorney Robert Steed wrote a humorous Atlanta Journal
Perspective article in 1986 proposing a law to ban the ads:
"There should be an absolute prohibition against those
relentless radio commercials featuring what sound to be a
pair of senior citizens flushed out of a nursing home up
north somewhere who are forever chirping 'Your Anchor Banker
he understands. Your Anchor Banker she understands.' "
The rap group KMD included the line in the lyrics of its
song Peachfuzz: " . . . Now only if I had two G's per strand
/ Ask my anchor banker, he understands. "
"I don't know what Dad would think of that," said his son
Donald L. Thomas Jr. of Duluth.
Wherever his parents went, even in foreign countries, the
younger Mr. Thomas said, people recognized them from the
ads. "They had a lot of fun with it," he said.
The funeral for Mr. Thomas, 88, of Sandy Springs, who died
Friday at St. Joseph's Hospital of heart failure following
dialysis, is at 11 a.m. today at Roswell Presbyterian
Church. Roswell Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.
Mr. Thomas, who gave up studying law to earn a degree in
accounting, was chairman and chief executive officer of the
bank from 1969 to 1989. The savings institution entered the
Georgia market in 1983 and discontinued operations in the
state in the 1990s.
While filming a TV commercial, it was suggested by the ad
agency that Mr. Thomas say the "Your Anchor Banker, he
understands" line, his son said. "Mother felt like women
were playing more of a role in business and suggested adding
the line, 'Yes, your Anchor Banker, she understands.' Dad
said, 'Fine, you do it.' "
For 22 years, her husband paid her $1 a year for her role in
the ads, said Mrs. Thomas, who never worked for the bank.
"So you should never work for your husband. It never pays,"
she added.
After a banking career based in New York, Mr. Thomas retired
to Sandy Springs in 1989. At Roswell Presbyterian Church, he
helped with building campaigns and was on the worship
committee. He joined the Roswell Rotary Club and Cherokee
Country Club.
"He loved to play golf," his son said. "He was not good. He
was average."
Through the Rotary Club Mr. Thomas established, with his
wife, an educational award for foreign exchange students,
his son said.
At 84, Mr. Thomas learned how to operate a computer and
became an online trader.
"He was very astute," his son said. "He made money. He
liquidated for cash in March 2000 before the crash. He was a
very strategic thinker. He had a good grasp of where we were
in the economic cycle. He was not a speculator; he was a
conservative manager."
Survivors include another son, Rhys Thomas of Roswell, four
grandchildren and one great-grandson.
Hyfler/Rosner
>
> For 22 years, Chairman Donald L. Thomas was featured in
> Anchor Savings Bank advertising that entered pop culture
> and more recently rap music.
>
> "Your Anchor Banker, he understands. Yes, your Anchor
> Banker, she understands" was the slogan at the focus of
> the company's advertising campaign.
>
> The ads featured Mr. Thomas and his wife, Barbara Thomas,
> of Sandy Springs and made them popular culture icons.
Someone points out to me in email (another NY'er) that his
recollection is that the wife came to the campaign a couple
of years later, as a tag.
You heard this ad slogan all...the...time..
Louis Epstein
:
:
:>
:> For 22 years, Chairman Donald L. Thomas was featured in
Yes,the "she understands" was added after years of the "he understands".
The obit didn't make clear that the bank got bought and the name
disappeared.
Remember Metropolitan Savings Bank,where they knew what we were saving
for?
Or when Union Dime started with U?
Or when Dollar Savings Bank was the better way?
Or when the Lady in Green was at the Greenwich Savings Bank?
Or the Bowery,the Bowery...
-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.
danny burstein
>:
>: Someone points out to me in email (another NY'er) that his
>: recollection is that the wife came to the campaign a couple
>: of years later, as a tag.
>:
>: You heard this ad slogan all...the...time..
>Yes,the "she understands" was added after years of the "he understands".
>The obit didn't make clear that the bank got bought and the name
>disappeared.
>Remember Metropolitan Savings Bank,where they knew what we were saving
>for?
>Or when Union Dime started with U?
>Or when Dollar Savings Bank was the better way?
>Or when the Lady in Green was at the Greenwich Savings Bank?
>Or the Bowery,the Bowery...
So where, exactly, is "Dry Dock Country"?
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
DGH
I lived in New England in the late 1960'a, and early to mid 1980's. I
remember hearing that advertisement all the time -- "Your Anchor banker
understands -- yes, your Anchor banker, SHE understands".
Whatever happened to Anchor bank? Maybe there should be an obituary for
it, too.
Brad Ferguson
Epstein <l...@main.put.com> wrote:
> The obit didn't make clear that the bank got bought and the name
> disappeared.
Well, yeah, except for the line, "In 1994, Anchor Bankers ceased to
exist entirely after the firm merged with the Dime Savings Bank."