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(August-2001) Bernie still the face of super
The industry superannuation sector has once again taken its bid for the hearts and minds of Australia’s retirement savers directly into people’s living rooms, releasing the latest in a series of highly popular television advertisements.
The latest burst of advertising by the sector, once again featuring industry fund frontman Bernie Fraser, have begun airing in prime-time television slots across Australia, with one clear aim in mind: to dispel the myth that industry superannuation funds equal low returns.
According to a spokesperson for Industry Funds Services (IFS), the current screenings represent the next phase in advertising for industry funds, which originally began in 1997 in anticipation of choice of fund legislation.
However, with choice of fund now seemingly on the back burner, the goal of the current campaign is to break down some common misconceptions about industry funds, the spokesperson says.
“There is a myth about industry funds only producing low returns,” she says. “We use the same investment managers as everyone else.”
She adds that this is one reason why the current series of ads focuses on returns achieved by the various funds involved. The advertisements feature five high-profile industry funds with graphs of their returns.
The funds are the Australian Retirement Fund (ARF), Cbus, Hesta, HostPlus and the Superannuation Trust of Australia (STA). The spokesperson says the advertisements are not simply in aid of the five mentioned funds, but to promote industry funds as a movement.
Such is Bernie Fraser’s belief in industry funds, he does the ads for free, says the spokesperson. She says that Fraser generates a very high level of “total recall” (78 per cent), which is ad speak for the amount of people who are able to identify who he is in the advertisements.
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