For over 20 years the IMEA Star Awards have honored the best of the best communications in the investment managing industry. The Star Awards were presented last month in 30 separate categories across three major classes of communications: investor, advisor and retirement.
We spoke with three winners in the advisor category for an inside look at what goes into an advisor campaign to make it special and bright enough to catch a Star.
As a longtime sponsor of the IMEA Star Awards, Imprint congratulates all of the talented, hard-working winners.
“I’ve seen so many fantastic examples of advisor communications over the years—meaningful campaigns, thoughtful insights—and the winners really focus on their customers and what those customers need,” said Imprint Managing Partner Andy Seibert in the run-up to the awards celebration. “This year, when there’s so many things going on in the world and here at home, marketers have really stepped it up and sharpened their skills.”
“There’s one aspect of the Stars which I really love, and that’s that the judges are your peers,” Seibert added. “So when you win a Star Award it’s getting the applause of your contemporaries, which is really special.”
Here’s what three winners in the advisor category had to say:
Crisis Communications winner:
Columbia Threadneedle — Market Volatility Advisor E-ssentials
Project goal: To effectively help financial advisors deal with the rapid and overwhelming economic impact of COVID-19. To that end, we created a hub on our website with resources covering critical needs: expert insights on markets, practical tips for advisors, and client-friendly content to share. And to make sure advisors knew about it, we launched a multi-channel promotional campaign with bold design and messaging.
Biggest challenge, and how it was solved: Producing a large volume of high-quality content very quickly in an environment full of uncertainty. The solution was teamwork, with everyone from Creative to Compliance focused on the same goal. We already had a skilled team in place prior to the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, including experience working and collaborating remotely. We just turned the volume up to 11.
Winning ingredient: Understanding our clients’ needs. This allowed us to focus on delivering resources that advisors actually wanted and could really use to navigate the new environment effectively.
Check out the work: https://www.columbiathreadneedleus.com/blog/market-volatility
EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION WINNER:
MFS — Volatility Campaign
Project goal: One of MFS’s key value propositions is to create value beyond our investment offering by helping financial professionals with their key business challenges through MFS Advisor EdgeSM, one of the most comprehensive value-add programs in the industry. One example of a key business challenge that can make or break an advisor’s practices is how they prepare for and live through volatile markets. Our goal was to offer strategies and tools to help advisor prepare their practice before and stay relevant during volatile times.
Biggest challenge and how it was solved: Our challenge was to create unique, timely content that would resonate with target audience. We solved for that be developing a consistent, integrated campaign across materials and medium that demonstrated how we can help advisors & their clients.
Winning ingredient: Well-designed, simple to use tools deployed through a variety of mediums, strong collaboration with our sales business partners in developing the content and helping to engage with our clients, & ideal timing with changes in the market environment
Check out the work: https://www.mfs.com/en-us/investment-professional/practice-management/volatility-fp-strength-time.html
INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN WINNER:
J.P. Morgan Asset Management — Other Side of Volatility
Project goal: The campaign objective is to establish and reinforce J.P. Morgan Asset Management as a leader and make the firm the first call clients and prospects make, to make sense of the volatility.
Biggest challenge, and how it was solved: At J.P. Morgan Asset Management we believe in providing long-term strategies with a client focused mindset. During the height of the market volatility we knew we had to help our clients find the right solutions for today and tomorrow. We know the first call clients make is to their financial advisors and we aim to be the first call financial advisors make to explore the other side of volatility. The solution was to reinforce to investors the importance of staying invested with confidence. A reminder to the financial professional community that it’s important to invest in proven strategies based on experience and not emotion.
Winning ingredient: We were swift in the development of “The Other Side of Volatility” campaign and our increased media investment against reaching the Financial professional community. The campaign was able to come to life quickly as a result of leveraging the existing on-going market correction insights which turned out to be the foundation of the campaign.
Check out the work: www.jpmorgan.com/volatility
So, what’s next?
We’d love to hear from you! Did you face similar challenges in 2020? What strategies did your team develop to tackle them? What lessons from 2020 are you keeping front of mind in 2021? Email us at imprint@imprintcontent.com, mention us on Twitter @imprintcontent or ping us on LinkedIn.
To read Part I: Investor Star Awards Winners Speak! , click here.
To read Part III: Retirement Star Awards Winners Speak! , click here.
