Groups increasingly stand alone on name

Last year’sMoney Management’sTop 50 Distributors data revealed an interesting branding strategy taking place in the larger end of the market.

Mostly by banks, these groups made a direct branding reference to themselves by including their name in the business names of their dealer groups. The idea behind it was obviously to leverage off the perceived credibility and stability of the parent company.

So in the case of Westpac there was Westpac Consumer Advisers, Westpac Planners and Westpac Business Advisers, and with St George Bank there was St George Advisers, St George Financial Planning and St George Private Client Services.

However, in this year’s data, this trend is not so apparent and while the owners of some dealer groups do choose to market their businesses under one core brand, a growing number are not.

Recent examples of two strong brands choosing not to cross promote include the launch of NRMA Financial Management’s retirement planning business ClearView Retirement Solutions, as well as the anticipated launch by Westpac Banking Corporation of a new dealer group called Catalyst Financial Group.

It is a development that reflects a shift in the point of focus of the branding strategies of owner companies, and a shift away from attracting advisers towards attracting customers.

“Ten years ago, financial planning brands didn’t actually stand for anything in terms of culture or presence,” AXA national dealership manager Mark Birrell says.

He says branding strategies were focussed on the presentation of the owner company to advisers rather than to the consumer. However, this is changing so that the brands of the advice are now more important.

“Brands that we see dominating funds management and product manufacturing are now redefining themselves, so they are more advice dominated,” Birrell says.

He says while AXA has spent a lot of time on branding issues, it has not spent a lot of money on it, something, which he predicts, will change in the future.

“The market will spend more money on advice offering. In the future, branding to the customer will form a significant part of our budget.”

AXA owns AXA Financial Planning, Charter Financial Planning and Altus Financial Services. AXA acquired Charter Financial Planning and created Altus to help prepare for the Financial Services Reform Act (FSRA).

Zurich Financial Services Australia has equity stakes in Australian Financial Services, Regional Financial Services, Lonsdale, Financial Lifestyle Solutions and Bridgeport.

According to Zurich head of distribution Steve Newnham, Zurich looks to have anchor partnerships with those businesses it has equity with.

“We do own more than 80 per cent [of the businesses] but we want the other owners of the businesses to own and run the business,” he says.

With this approach to its dealership groups, Zurich embraces the independent nature of the businesses and is happy to be a sub-brand for them.

“We are not so much there to drive customers in the door but to develop the business,” Newnham says.

He says in the case of Lonsdale, it is a collection of accounting firms who provide financial planning.

“They pride themselves on their independence, even though they have a big institution as their partner,” Newnham says.

Similar to AXA’s approach with Altus, Zurich has established Financial Lifestyle Solutions to help cater for the FSRA.

“Those advisers that are in transition need the support services of a dealer group,” Newnham says.

While Associated Planners’ roots are in life insurance, it has extended its network into accountants. Australian Financial Services on the other hand has history with multi-agents. Regional Financial Services primarily deals with farmers who have particular planning needs, while Bridgeport also has a large network with accountants.

“Zurich can access niche markets that these practice in. We can create economies of scale and so the groups can use whatever services they need.”

As reported in the February 28 issue ofMoney Management, ING recently conducted some interesting research on branding, and its relationship to owner and dealer group’s issues.

The research concluded that while there are groups in the market that specialise in product manufacturing and others who specialise in advice, the brand of a financial planning office was eroded as soon as a manufacturing name was put in front of it.

However, consumers were happy enough to have a manufacturing name as a sub-brand under the dealership name, and in fact, gained further confidence from this arrangement.

As a result of this research, ING is currently looking at possibly changing all of the names of its dealership groups — Lynx, Financial Services, and Partnership Planning — with the probable exception of RetireInvest. This is because consumers feel the name adequately describes what it does and that it aligns with their lifestyle goals.

This move reflects the increasing interest of parent companies to establish a brand that is as recognised by consumers as it is to advisers.

Count Wealth Accountant’s managing director Barry Lambert’s approach to naming the new business his group launched last year (Compound Investments), was to find a name that evoked the principles of investing.

“We wanted a distinct name that people could remember and Compound is pretty clear,” he says.

Further, many non-accountants wanted to join the business, so the group had to develop a separate business that enabled them to join.

Count Wealth Accountants was established in 1987 to identify with accountants. Lambert says the words ‘wealth accountants’ were added to reflect the group’s wider business.

“There is a branding strategy across both companies that is not just a [branding] strategy for advisers,” he says.