From little things, big things grow

Encouraging people to take baby steps to improve their finances and avoid the “grim reaper” of monetary disaster will be the focus of the Financial Literacy Foundation’s multi-million dollar public education campaign, according to chairman Paul Clitheroe.

The Federal Government has pledged $16 million for the campaign, to be spent across television, radio and print media.

While the launch date has not been finalised, Clitheroe hopes to begin the campaign in March 2006.

“What we are going to try and do, with your help, is get people in contact with their money. We are talking a powerful, long-term campaign,” he says.

“Cabinet was very keen on a grim reaper campaign — ‘if you don’t save, you’ll be buggered’. But fear in my opinion is not a particularly good piece of behavioural psychology when it comes to engaging people with their money.”

He says the campaign will be more positive, but also realistic. “I watched with interest the AMP ads from a few years ago … but in my view they were overly aspirational because they had the old bloke looking at the beach house, which is probably worth a million dollars or more. People don’t actually think they are going to own a one or two million dollar beach house.

“We want to do the kind of campaign that shows that success comes from small steps. If someone’s got a $1,000 credit card debt that they can’t get rid of, if you can talk to them and counsel them, and if over a year they get rid of that debt, they feel success.”

Despite the Federal Government’s desire to launch the campaign this year, Clitheroe says an action plan needed to be formalised before public education began. He says: “We need to work out what the heck at the end of the ad we tell Australians to do.”

With a commitment from both the Federal Government and opposition to provide the Foundation with long-term funding, 18 employees have now been hired on a permanent basis for the Canberra headquarters, headed by general manager Peter McCrae. All board members are unpaid for their work.

As well as the advertising campaign, the foundation’s work will also include introducing financial literacy programs in to schools and workplaces.

While the foundation is not permitted to provide grants to educational bodies using government funding, it hopes to set up a separate grant-making facility, which will be funded by donations from private institutions.

“A number of large institutions have already offered between $1 million and $5 million dollars. And to their credit, I didn’t even ask for it, and they have said they don’t even want their name on the brochures,” Clitheroe says.