Industry Super Network (ISN) has defended its controversial "compare the pair" campaign by saying it does not insult financial advisers.
The adverts claim to quantify the effect fees and commissions have on superannuation pay-out.
"Industry funds are not anti-advice," ISN executive manager David Whiteley told delegates at the Australian SuperFunds Summit 2008 in Sydney yesterday.
"Industry funds recognise that members need financial advice. The ads don't set out to insult financial planners."
FPA chief executive Jo-Anne Bloch said in a previous interview the adverts devalued advice and promoted products that were not necessarily in the interests of their members.
The ads sparked substantial vocal public complaints, a range of imitations and a parliamentary enquiry principally into whether industry super funds should be allowed to advertise.
However, the campaign was a success because it made consumer think about and then understand the fundamentals of superannuation, Whiteley said.
"The reason it caused such a controversy is that it exposed the way that imbedded conflicts of interest inherent in commission-based forms of super distribution through the financial advice system," he said.
Product issuers, banks and financial institutions, pay $2 billion a year to financial advisers to sell super products, he claimed.
According to Whiteley, the choice legislation created a "potentially explosive cocktail" of uninformed consumers and commission agents.
The objective of "compare the pair" was to educate and inform ISN members about the features of their funds and therefore mitigate the risk of members being switched into more expensive retail funds.
"I think to some extent, we weren't naïve about this, but we were a little surprised that super could get the pulses racing quite as much as it had done," he said.
