The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) aims to convince 30 per cent of Australians to use a financial planner by 2014, up from 20 per cent, and has so far raised half the money it needs for a marketing campaign to reach its goal, AFA chief executive Richard Klipin said.
The AFA is banking on an intensive marketing campaign, dubbed Make a Plan, to convey its research findings that people who use planners are financially and emotionally better off.
Klipin said the AFA was halfway to raising the $2.5 million it planned to spend on the campaign.
He said the AFA wanted to shift the debate about the value of advice to consumers.
"In other words, talking to consumers in their terms about their issues, which plays at the issue that comes back in all of our research -consumers don't really understand what advice does for them. They don't see why they should bother," he told InvestorDaily.
"Secondly, we want to grow the advice market. The research we did last year showed people who get advice are happier, are healthier, they're wealthier, and they have more control. We want to see more people get that experience."
He said the AFA would work to expand the advice market incrementally, so its first step would be lifting the number of Australians getting advice from its current level of two in 10.
"What three in 10 requires is that we're effectively going to grow the market significantly by another 50 per cent. That is an ambitious target."
He said the AFA aimed to launch Make a Plan in the second half of this year. "That involves fundraising and getting the appropriate campaign built and into the market," he said.
