Firms’ advertising campaigns not up to par: Includes chart

But the difference in expectations between advisors contracted with managing general agents and those working for an insurer as dedicated sales agents are drastic. Most advisors working with an MGA rely on word-of-mouth and referrals rather than advertising. As the majority of these advisors are independents, it only makes sense that they are responsible for their own branding.

“The firm doesn’t have an image. It’s the broker’s name that is the image,” says a Hub Financial Inc. advisor in Central Canada, echoing the sentiment of most MGA-contracted advisors.

“We don’t do consumer advertising,” says John Lutrin, chief marketing officer and executive vice president with Hub in Vancouver. “Our client is the advisor.”

In fact, the consensus among MGAs seems to be that the advisors have their clients — and the MGAs’ clients are the advisors themselves.

“Why would I care if it advertises?” asks an Equinox Financial Group Inc. advisor in British Columbia. “I don’t think my clients even know what Equinox is. They deal with me.”

But advisors working at Clarica Financial Services Inc., Freedom 55 Financial, Great-West Life Assurance Co. and State Farm Insurance Cos. had other opinions about the need for advertising.

Advisors at Great-West Life gave their firm the lowest grade in the category, a 4.8, because the giant makes little effort to promote itself and its advisors. “There’s no branding. No one really knows that we exist,” says an advisor in B.C.

Adds a colleague in Alberta: “I’ve never seen Great-West in the media. I would like to see it do more.”

Meanwhile, a Clarica advisor in Ontario, whose firm received a score of 5.1, is just as disgruntled: “For a couple of years, we were doing pretty good. But it’s gone downhill. I’m not pleased with the marketing. Clarica has completely done away with the television advertisements.”

Clarica advisors rated their firm’s advertising the second-lowest of the non-MGA firms surveyed because, after a period of aggressive marketing, Clarica has simply ended or at least drastically reduced its advertising campaigns.

“It was a campaign to establish a brand,” says Jack Garramone, vice president of the Clarica sales force, of the campaign that took place earlier in this decade. “The firm invested very heavily in establishing the name and creating awareness around our mission of lifelong financial security.”

According to Garramone, Clarica launched the campaign on behalf of advisors and to create brand recognition. The company had recently demutualized and changed its name from Mutual Life of Canada to Clarica. But the company has now switched its focus to direct marketing, leaving advisors unhappy. “The marketing is horrible now,” says a Clarica advisor in the West.

For advisors who are working with just one supplier, the need to brand their company name is strong. If advisors are selling only products with their company’s name on it, that name had better be well publicized, say many advisors.

State Farm and Freedom 55 seem to be doing just that, with steady advertising campaigns that have cemented their brands in the minds of most Canadians. The advisors at these firms ranked their satisfaction with advertising highest, with an 8.1 and a 7.7, respectively.

“State Farm does a very good job of marketing itself,” says a State Farm advisor in Ontario. “Everyone knows who we are.”

Through multimedia advertising campaigns, these two companies have branded their names, logos and even their jingles, making themselves household names in some cases. “We have a well-recognized brand,” says a Freedom 55 advisor in Ontario. “The marketing has been very good over the years.”

World Financial Group Inc. uses a different formula — a “network marketing model” — to promote its image. The firm doesn’t rely on an advertising but rather on recruiting both advisors and clients from a pool of people known to current advisors. “If someone said he or she was interested in becoming a client, at the same time we’d talk about the potential of becoming an advisor,” says WFG president Richard Williams.

“All of our advertising is word of mouth,” says a WFG advisor in Ontario. “I don’t think it would make much difference if we had ads on TV or not.” IE