Then the stakes rise. A high-powered female executive walks in, and clearly it was her Starbucks. Fortunately, the thief escapes the break room before getting busted. (For a campaign meant to target C-suite executives, it’s a bit ironic that the upper-echelon exec gets the short end of the stick.) Starbucks’ logo appears on a white background with the message “Moves life forward. Lists on Nasdaq.” After that, Nasdaq’s logo appears with the tagline “Trade up.”

The branding campaign is meant to influence where businesses choose to list when they’re ready to go public and to lure firms already listed on other exchanges to change allegiances.

What Nasdaq’s Advertising Doesn’t Say

If one thing is noticeably missing from the TV campaign, it’s any mention of the world beyond the U.S. That could be because Nasdaq lost a bid for the London Stock Exchange earlier this year. If you’re looking for a more global message, you’ll find it instead in a new branding campaign launched on September 10 by Nasdaq’s competitor, N.Y.S.E. Euronext, which completed its merger in April—the same month that McKinney began work on its new Nasdaq campaign.

Like the Nasdaq ads, the N.Y.S.E. Euronext TV spot features prominent companies listed on its exchange, such as Hewlett-Packard, McDonald’s, and Disney. And the competing exchanges’ budgets are similar too.

Neither company would release its own figures, but according to data from TNS Media Intelligence, each company spent about $26 million on advertising in 2002. In 2003, spending dropped to about $11 million for each exchange, and then, beginning in 2004, their ad budgets began to veer apart. N.Y.S.E. spent $28 million in 2004 and $23 million in 2005, while Nasdaq spent $26 million in 2004 and $16 million in 2005. But the two found common ground again in 2006, when N.Y.S.E. spent $20 million and Nasdaq spent $21 million.

But when it comes to image, Nasdaq’s young, high-tech profile contrasts with the 215-year-old N.Y.S.E. While Nasdaq suggests innovation and youth, N.Y.S.E. has prestige. “It’s the premier long-standing market,” says Hans Stoll, director of the Financial Markets Research Center at Vanderbilt University. N.Y.S.E’s latest commercial, however, seems to encroach onto Nasdaq’s territory: The ad is composed entirely of computer graphics.

These recent marketing efforts could be the latest battle in the war for listings. According to Stoll, Nasdaq’s growth and increased capabilities spurred the two markets to start competing for new listings, thus making advertising an important weapon. Nasdaq has well-grounded hopes that image may be a factor when firms choose where to list. “It’s been very difficult for us to break out of, at times, the mantle of home for technology companies,” Nasdaq’s Jacobs says. “We’re so much more than that.”

E-Trade, which switched to Nasdaq from N.Y.S.E. at the end of 2006, says Nasdaq’s spirit of innovation influenced its move. “It wasn’t like we saw one ad and said, ‘You know I love that ad, and I want to partner with Nasdaq,’ ” says Nicholas Utton, E-Trade’s chief marketing officer. “But when you look at all the pieces, you say, ‘Wow, we naturally coexist.’ ”