CFP Board seeks to boost consumer awareness of planning

An advertising agency that has bolstered the images of Fidelity Investments and Progressive Casualty Insurance Corp. is brainstorming about how to help financial planning achieve the same visibility.

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. has hired Arnold Worldwide to help it think through a consumer awareness campaign. The board hasn’t decided to launch such an initiative but it is taking preliminary steps, such as conducting focus groups.

“We’re still in the planning phase,” CFP Board chief executive Kevin Keller said at the organization’s program directors’ conference in Washington on Friday.

The CFP Board tapped Arnold Worldwide in part because the firm has created successful campaigns for Fidelity, which feature the “green line” motif, and Progressive, which has an ad campaign starring the effervescent saleswoman Flo.

The board, whose mission is to professionalize the planning sector, awards the CFP certificate to individuals who pass an initial exam and follow-up requirements. Many of the 62,000 people who have earned the CFP designation seek to increase its resonance with potential clients.

“Certificants want more public awareness of the CFP certification,” said Mr. Keller, who notes that the subject has been raised without prompting in meetings with CFP holders around the country over the last year and a half.

“It has come up organically in every city we’ve visited,” said Mr. Keller, who will host 12 more sessions next month.

The faltering economy — and the anxiety caused by the financial crisis — have created an opportunity for the CFP Board to burnish the image of certified financial planners. But CFP officials acknowledge there’s a lot of work to do to make planning – and the CFP certificate – a household word.

Research shows that people are looking for credibility in the person they hire to help sort out their financial lives.

“They don’t know where to turn or who to trust,” said Charles Moran, director of the financial planning program at the State University of New York-Cobleskill and the CFP Board’s chair-elect. “Not very many people know about the CFP.”

The CFP Board agreed to research an awareness initiative at its July meeting. Arnold Worldwide was tapped to provide recommendations on potentially effective approaches for a campaign.

The effort would be worthwhile if it made Americans think about how to achieve their financial goals, according to Mr. Moran.

“There are 300 million that ought to be aware of the concept of financial planning, regardless of whether we’ve figured out a way to meet their needs yet,” Mr. Moran said.