Adviser site VouchedFor has announced its intention to launch a national televised advertising campaign to promote financial advice.
Beginning in April, the online comparison website’s campaign will target the pre-retirement market with adverts showing across platforms such as Channel 4’s network.
Three quarters of the adverts will air in the day with the remaining showing at peak viewing times later on in the evening and weekends.
Alex Whitson, chief marketing officer for VouchedFor, said: “We conducted consumer research, and a few key themes emerged – one of these being that it’s really important to champion the belief that people are better off for having access to financial advice.
“From the focus group, people avoid the issue of financial advice and their future as it is intimidating. Since the crash, there has also been a distrust of quick and easy access to financial advice.
“We’re hoping the TV campaign will address this and will let people know where to turn to for assistance with their finances.”
The news comes following concerns raised by IFAs after VouchedFor increased its prices in return for only introducing validated leads.
The changes came after several IFAs questioned why more work had not been done in the past to ensure leads they were paying for were from clients requiring advice.
At the time Adam Price, founder of VouchedFor, said: “VouchedFor works very well for most advisers usually earning their money back many times over.
“That said, we are always looking to improve, both for consumers and advisers.
“Our recently announced changes were prompted by a survey of all our advisers – the clear consensus was that they would like us to increase our marketing activity.”
The Personal Finance Society (PFS) launched its own consumer awareness campaign at the end of last year, which included the launch of a consumer website and accredited adviser directory. It also ran a series of adverts in national publications and intends to build on these initiatives during the course of 2016.
Keith Richards, chief executive of the PFS, said: “It is good to see the introduction of VouchedFor’s TV advertising campaign, which I am sure will help to raise awareness at such a key time. There has been too little promotion of the value of professional advice, and we are planning additional initiatives to compliment the foundations already established and raise the profile more broadly.”
Adviser view
Kim Barrett, IFA at Barrett’s Financial Solutions, said: “Advertising is always a Catch 22 scenario.
“You can pay money for advertising and hope, or you can do nothing. The trouble with independent financial advice is that it is a passive area, so sometimes you need to nudge clients in the right direction.
“Speaking generally, we get a lot of traffic from Vouched For, although sometimes a lot of these might just be queries – there are not always a lot of hits.
“If this is one of the ways they are demonstrating new ways to generate traffic and actively promoting advice, then this is a huge help.”
Unbiased also responded
A spokesperson said: “Anything that educates consumers on the value of advice is surely good for the market as a whole. No single quick fix will plug the advice gap in itself, but ongoing campaigns across both new and old media will help to build bridges.
“This is what we’ve been doing with our regular Value Of Advice campaign and our new MoneyFlex platform, which lets users put questions directly to advisers and get responses in real time. Consumers do need new tools for discovering what’s out there, while advisers should recognise that the way consumers access information is evolving, and isn’t going to stand still.’
