A new commercial from financial company E-Trade brings new meaning to the phrase ‘there’s no point crying over spilt milk’.

Lindsay Lohan has spat the dummy over the ad, which she claims is a parody of her life.

The ad features two talking babies in a Skype conversation, and refers to “That milkaholic Lindsay”.

Lohan is now suing E-Trade for $100 million in damages, claiming her name has been used without her approval.

The fact that such a suit presumes Lohan is in the same one-name fame league as Madonna and Beyonce is in itself an interesting point for discussion – but we’ll leave that one to the gossip rags to debate.

What’s more interesting is the lengths advertising companies are going to (whether they admit there’s a subliminal message there or not) to win back investors.

Direct share trading is an obvious growth area going forward, as shattered trust between clients and advisers prompts investors to take control of their finances and cut out the middle man.

Recent research by CoreData has confirmed this is happening in pockets of the market, namely the high net worth segment – those with more than $1 million in investable assets outside their property and superannuation assets.

As previously reported on Burningpants, the number of people agreeing with the statement “I used to have a financial planner but not anymore” has effectively doubled in the past 12 months.

At a CoreData focus group held last month, many such investors informed us that they believed giving their money to professional money managers wasn’t the best use of their money and that they could do a better job themselves.

Separate polling by CoreData of 500 Australians with varying levels of wealth suggests financial planning groups are a long way behind super funds in the trust and reliability stakes, lending further weight to our theory that the financial advice industry will be forced to shatter into a series of tiers if it is to continue to service the vastly different needs of the post-GFC consumer.