Pension ad messages ‘fail to trigger action’

Financial services providers need to target their marketing messages more effectively, as pensions and personal finance advertising is failing to hit home with 75% of people, according to marketing research consultancy Incite Marketing Plannin

Financial services providers need to target their marketing messages more effectively, as pensions and personal finance advertising is failing to hit home with 75% of people, according to marketing research consultancy Incite Marketing Planning.

IMP director Graham Cannon says: “We have come to the conclusion that the financial services industry needs to take action to trigger us to take more responsibility.”

Current advertising is “overwhelmingly generic”, he says, and aimed squarely at people already catered for. He adds that the sector, with its obsession with rates and figures, could find itself in a spiralling price war.

Cannon was commenting ahead of this week’s A-Day, which promises the biggest shake-up of pensions for more than a decade. Cannon says that current advertising appeals solely to the “controlled” who, with higher disposable income and knowledge, are already saving for retirement.

Advertisers should move away from rational product-led advertising to targeted needs-based communications, with products and levels of advice tailored to suit the differing needs of consumer groups.