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Why is asset management marketing so ineffective?

By Steven Miyao

I was on my way to Tokyo when I stopped at one of the newsstands in the airport. I was getting ready for a 14-hour flight so I bought a bunch of magazines, one of them I had never seen before -- "Good."

On the plane I got completely sucked into the content. I barely skipped any of the articles, which is very uncommon for me. I couldn't put down the magazine and read article after article including "Metal is making a comeback in Egypt after a crackdown on "Satanic music", "The Ashland Media Exchange and the Espresso Book Machine seek to put books back in people's hands," and an interview with Bruce Bueno who is putting the "science" back in political science.

While I was reading, I came across what looked like an article that focused the dangers of pesticides.

• "6: Times greater the incidence of children born with autism to mothers living within 500 meters of California fields sprayed with pesticides than the rate of autism births nationwide"
• "10,400: Number of people who die in the U.S. each year from cancer related to pesticide exposure."
• "250: Number of people in the U.S. killed each year by assault rifles"
• "245,000: Number of fish killed in 1995 when a heavy rainstorm caused runoff from Alabama cotton fields into a nearby creek"
• "90: Percentage of municipal water treatment facilities lacking equipment to remove these chemicals from the drinking water"
• "5: Number of the 9 most common pesticides used on cotton that are classified as "known carcinogens" by the EPA"

The article was sponsored by what I thought was a not-for-profit organization called Loomstate. I was intrigued and went right to my mac to enter www.loomstate.com. Lo and behold, Loomstate is actually a organic jeans company, not an environmental not-for-profit.

What a great marketing campaign! If they would have created a typical jeans ad featuring a sexy model showing off a nice butt, I probably would have flipped right to the next page. Well, maybe I would have looked for a little bit, but I would have quickly forgotten the brand and I definitely wouldn't have gone to their Web site. Rather than using sex to sell their jeans, Loomstate chooses to educate their consumers about the environment and in turn piques some interest in their product that goes beyond the surface.

Asset managers tend to show the equivalent of what are sexy models in their ads, by touting 1, 3, 5-year results. Why doesn't the industry educate advisers who are interested in investments and provide insights to portfolio mangers? Asset Mangers could present statistics or analysis, which reveals something new to advisers, and ultimately drives traffic to their site.

I hope the financial industry catches on and the next time I open Financial Planning Magazine I will be inspired by the information presented to me. And who knows perhaps I will gain a new perspective that will compel me to hop on the computer and find out more.