Mercer Wealth Solutions moves to reinforce brand

Mercer Wealth Solutions has launched a major advertising campaign aimed specifically at strengthening its brand awareness in the market.

“We’ve never taken our brand to the market. Our customers and private clients have got a really good knowledge of who Mercer Wealth Solutions is, but the market may not know who we are,” Mercer Human Resources worldwide partner David Anderson said.

“That’s because we’ve spent no money on promoting who we are. We get great editorial coverage and that sort of thing, but you can’t necessarily build a brand on that alone,” he explained.

Anderson emphasised that while Mercer was looking to boost its presence in the market with the campaign, its intention was not to build a mass market brand, as this is something too many other competitors in the industry had already achieved.

“We want to get across two main messages, and that is that Mercer Wealth Solutions is a very accessible brand and it is a brand at the high quality end of the spectrum. That’s the positioning we see as being unique,” he said.

The catalyst for launching the campaign was the changing superannuation landscape, in particular the emerging impact of choice of fund and the changes to the super rules handed down in last year’s Federal Budget.

The series of advertisements contain an element of ‘quirkiness’ surrounding the free spirit and diversity of individuals with the message of “just get Mercernary about your money” as the common theme.

The campaign will cover both the Melbourne and Sydney markets, with outdoor marketing such as billboards and bus and tram shelter advertising, and online advertising being the main mediums selected to convey the message.

“Our target audience are time poor. They are typically professionals who are busy with their careers and they don’t have a lot of time for things like electronic media, so television and radio aren’t things that really feature in their lives. So our research showed outdoor would be a very effective medium,”

Anderson explained.

There will also be a direct marketing component to the campaign, with the first leg being a concentrated direct mail out regarding simpler super targeted at Mercer’s existing client base.

The brand awareness campaign was launched on February 5 and Anderson said he is expecting a minimum 20 per cent unprompted brand recall rate increase by the end of 2007.