Nothing wrong with a bit of self-promotion

Thursday, September 29th 2005, 8:03PM

Over the past few weeks it has been interesting to watch two of trade associations, one on each side of the Tasman, rolling out advertising campaigns to promote their members' services to the public.

In Australia the Financial Planning Association has finally gone live with its campaign which includes television ads, promoting the benefits of using a financial planner.

In New Zealand the NZ Mortgage Brokers Association has established a new brand identity and is also about to start a public campaign encouraging people to use a mortgage broker.

Its campaign also includes television advertising.

One of the positive things about the NZMBA one is that the association has set some targets around its campaign (as all campaigns should have). It wants to increase the market share of the mortgage brokers from about 30% of all loans written to 40%. While it doesn't sound much it is a 33% increase for each broker and the question is can they handle such growth?

One broker I met the other day does six hour weeks and 12-plus hour working days are the norm.

The other interesting thing about the NZMBA campaign is that it is being funded by a levy on members. There has been a high degree of buy-in from their members and it will be fascinating to see how the strategy evolves. (There is plenty more on this subject in the next issue of the NZ Mortgage Mag which is due out on October 10).

What's missing in this picture is some promotion of the financial planning industry in New Zealand. Yes the FPIA are going through a planning exercise to decide how they are going to market and promote themselves, and I assume they are watching the FPA and NZMBA.

One of their challenges is how do they promote their membership which is split across several groups; investment and insurance, CFP and CLU qualified, and those without these designations who don't want to progress down those paths.

What I think is clear is that there needs to be a big push to educate and inform the public about why they should use a financial planner.

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