Any other business: The Budget changes have inevitably pushed pension schemes to update how they communicate with members. But could a wider overhaul of your 'brand' boost engagement? Should it set scheme and sponsor apart?
But could a wider overhaul of your pension scheme ‘brand’ be useful to boost engagement? And how distinct should that branding be from the sponsoring employer?
Damian Stancombe, head of workplace health and wealth at consultancy Barnett Waddingham, said over the past three weeks alone the company has been approached by four employers looking to address such issues.
But Stancombe added any overhaul should avoid throwing out the name of the employer as it risks creating a “fission” between the scheme and the sponsor. Members are more likely to relate to and trust something that bears their employer’s name, he said.
“It’s like Italian wine," said Stancombe. "You always look for an Italian wine that includes the name of the wine grower because he’s comfortable and happy with the quality of the wine within and that’s why he puts his name to it. And that should be no different from a pension scheme.”
Stancombe said the wider review of schemes’ identity is in part a result of a renaissance for pensions, as legislative change has seen it come to the fore.
“Pensions have sat in the back office… and this stale image of them is no longer fit for purpose,” he says. “They are, as Mr Webb said, incredibly sexy.”
What’s in a name?
Duncan Buchanan, partner at law firm Hogan Lovells and president of the Society of Pension Professionals, said research continues to show that people trust their employer more than anyone else when it comes to pensions. This is why all of his clients’ schemes have the employer's name in the title, he said.
Buchanan argued branding is perhaps more important in the insurance and mastertrust space, where the audience comprises employers as well as staff.
He added: “Brand helps in two ways: to attract the employer in the first place and… if you’ve got a nice brand and a nice feel to your product, it makes the members feel good.”
But Alan Morahan, head of DC consulting at Punter Southall, pointed to the pension scheme of aeronautical engineer Finmeccanica, which has adopted a name distinct from the employer – FuturePlanner – while at the same time making limited use of animated characters or other imagery.
He also cited the example of the Kingfisher pension scheme, which through the incorporation of a set of characters known as the Bolt family has demonstrated how a scheme can retain the employer name but be distinct on how it communicates with members.
A trustee from the Kingfisher scheme spoke at a Punter Southall event on communication last year, Morahan recalled. “He explained how they were making a concerted effort to improve engagement with members and, as part of this, had developed the Bolt family to use for passing on important messages.”
Karen Partridge, head of client services for the UK and Australia at communication consultancy AHC, agreed that using characters can act as a useful focus for some schemes’ branding.
“We once developed a pensions branding that had a character at its core,” she says. “The character became so popular that it had celebrity status in the organisation.”
