Who could have ever predicted what consumer prices in the United States would be like today?
Apparently an advertising agency could do a pretty darn good job of it back in 1996 and, frankly, it's freaking some folks out.
The print ad in question has gone viral repeatedly on Reddit, LinkedIn, and X due to its eerie accuracy.
You can see it in its full-page magazine form and cropped versions here:
r/Damnthatsinteresting/Reddit
@PoorlyAgedStuff/X
The ad was for TIAA-CREF—Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) and College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF)—which is an American financial services organization and private provider of financial retirement services.
That's the impetus of their tagline, "Insuring the future for those who shape it." The organization has since shortened their name to just TIAA.
The bold print on the ad stated:
"They say in thirty years, a burger & fries could cost $16, a vacation $12,500, and a basic car $65,000."
Followed by:
"No problem. You'll eat in. You won't drive. And you won't go anywhere."
Now, for some people, the lack of parallelism in the ad copy is troubling.
The first section goes burger, vacation, then vehicle, but the latter section goes burger, vehicle, then vacation. So disturbing!
Oddly, that's not what's horrifying most people.
While 30 years from 1996 is 2026, 2025 pricing is matching up a little too closely with the ads predictions.
On the McDonald's app, a medium Quarter Pounder meal is over $14. A burger at a mid price burger restaurant can cost over $20. Their $16 estimate is a low ball between most fast food and mid-tier restaurants.
An average family trip for four to Disney World or Disneyland comes in at anywhere between $7,000 for a baseline budget vacay—no park food, cheapest off-park accommodations, and no special passes—to over $15,000 for a trip including staying in a Disney resort with a park meal plan and line skipping passes. Again, $12,500 is a good guesstimate.
In 2025, the most popular vehicle make in the United States are SUVs or crossovers. Average cost of a full-size SUV is $76,500 with mid-size and crossovers coming in at $48,300. That's an average price around $62,400 if an equal number of both sizes were purchased. Again, $65,000 isn't far off.
People are disturbed and depressed by the ad—which was supposed to fear monger people into opening a retirement account, not actually come true.
r/Damnthatsinteresting/Reddit
r/Damnthatsinteresting/Reddit
The ad was the brainchild of creative director Todd Heyman and art director Bill Bonomo, who were working at Ogilvy ad agency at the time.
Heyman told Entrepreneur:
"We started with our target audience. What were they thinking? And why?"
Of the original ad ask, Heyman said:
"It was generic and bland."
"In short, we were being asked to churn out the same message that pretty much every financial provider pours into advertising's sea of sameness. For us, that was the equivalent of advertising malpractice."
Their research found out most people didn't set up a retirement account out of fear of the process.
"Because of that, they fail to take action. They give in to procrastination, often for decades—until it's too late."
The team decided to give them something scarier to contemplate, which Heyman described.
"So given that mindset, what was the logical next step? How could we prove to our audience that investing now was imperative? We decided to focus on the result of inaction—of failing to invest and letting inflation decimate your dream of a comfortable retirement."
"It was easy to do the math. We took the average rate of inflation and extrapolated out thirty years. Then we wrote the ad."
"It was attention-getting. It was informative. It spurred people to act. And it was as close to a product demonstration as a headline can get. The ad described those wild prices in 30 years."
Not so wild 29 years later.
Once 30 years from the date of the ad actually arrives, will their math continue to be accurate or will the inflation caused by the administration of MAGA Republican President Donald Trump shoot consumer prices even higher?
We'll have to wait about four months to find out.
@jessicachastain/Instagram
