CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS

TODAY’S BLOG

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS

If you believe much of the marketing spiel, it seems that in this life you have to become successful by becoming a celebrity. This isn’t necessarily famous, but well known within your specified field. Some call this personal branding and it’s the regular diet of entrepreneurial and self-improvement books and courses. I read a piece yesterday that resonated with me and debunked a lot of this twaddle.

It’s all Pants

What is certainly the case, is that many people will regard the opinions of others as evidence of credibility. “Celebrities” can certainly give added impetus to sales of products. Think David Beckham and underpants. It works, though I’m not sure who is kidding who when considering this particular example. I saw a video clip of a game show in which Gordon Ramsay posed a forfeit question to James Cordon “which of your endorsements have you never used?”. Forfeit taken, the money is presumably too good to forfeit with the truth.

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS - SOLOMONS IFA BLOG

By Association

Many people buy or are certainly helped to buy based on the reviews or recommendations of others. That’s basically Trip Advisors entire business model, and of course most online retailers seek reviews, constantly. Hands up, we also ask clients to provide testimonials, which is much the same thing… we simply don’t shape or lead them (so they are honest).

Big Noise, Big Bucks, Big Blindspot

When it comes to investing, celebrities are now to be found endorsing all sorts of financial products that they have no real understanding of. Remember the adverts releases for the failing Equitable Life and Buzz Aldrin was promoting them in 1998? Or Anthony Hopkins promoting Big Bank Barclays, these days a task left to Simon Cowell.

Crypto – never expect good things in the Crypt

The world of financial products has become ever more complex with the rise of cryptocurrency. That specific field is full of corruption and fraud. One might say, its a bit of a jungle our there. The regulator has reported a tripling of reported fraud in cryptocurrency and foreign currency, each “investor” losing an average of £14,600. In my opinion, this will only get worse. Much worse. As more people seek easy returns to prop up the dismal interest from cash, the temptation is to try something that appears to have done well. Having a celebrity endorsement will, sadly for many, end in tears. Money talks and it walks, there are multitudes of people that will attempt to part you from yours, which is why part of my role is to act as guardian or bouncer on the door to your financial planning.

If you know someone that is contemplating a new investment that sounds too good to be true, or you suspect as much, refer them to the FCA scam smart website here. To be blunt, when it comes to investing, seeing any form of “celebrity” endorsement ought to leave you agreeing with those that make “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here”… except think.. “that’s a celebrity, get me out of here”…

Dominic Thomas
Solomons IFA

You can read more articles about Pensions, Wealth Management, Retirement, Investments, Financial Planning and Estate Planning on my blog which gets updated every week. If you would like to talk to me about your personal wealth planning and how we can make you stay wealthier for longer then please get in touch by calling 08000 736 273 or email info@solomonsifa.co.uk

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk 
Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

GET IN TOUCH

Solomon’s Independent Financial Advisers
The Old Mill Cobham Park Road, COBHAM Surrey, KT11 3NE

Email – info@solomonsifa.co.uk    Call – 020 8542 8084

7 QUESTIONS, NO WAFFLE

Are we a good fit for you?

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS2023-12-01T12:17:25+00:00

Pensions: Are you an Equitable Life policyholder?

Solomons-financial-advisor-wimbledon-bloggerAre you an Equitable Life policyholder?

parliamentprotest24oct12

Protest by EMAG October 2012

One of the larger financial messes in the last 20 years has been the failure of Equitable Life. This was a company that essentially said they didn’t deal with “middlemen” (meaning IFAs) which in practice enabled them to also say that they did not pay commission to independent financial advisers, so despite being nothing more than a product manufacturer, managed to persuade many people that this was somehow better than an IFA being able to select from the entire market and select an appropriate arrangement. As a mutual society, they could also claim not to have shareholders (who require returns). Of course in practice, like any organisation, mutual or Plc, they have operating costs – their staff and advisers who sold, sorry “arranged” policies.  It was evident to some in the mid-1990’s that Equitable simply wasn’t a sustainable business. As you may imagine there were not many IFAs that couldn’t control the sniggers once Equitable was forced to close to new business in December 2000. As yet I haven’t met a single adviser that doesn’t believe that the demise of Equitable Life has had a significant impact on the degree of mistrust of financial institutions. This seems to have been compounded by the delays in appropriate compensation to policyholders. Despite failure, the company survives to service its estimated 500,000 policyholders with around £8bn of funds being managed (Equitable has been around for 253 years).

The Big Broken Promise

However the demise was nothing to do with product charges, commission (or lack of it). In practice it was triggered by failing to keep a simple but expensive promise of guaranteed annuity rates, on which it reneged and was subsequently brought to book, which then resulted in the collapse as the annuity rates were rather  more than “over generous” at the time. Anyway, long sad story short, the time to apply for compensation due to the “government maladministration which ocurred in the the regulation of Equitable Life” which was established  in 2010 is drawing to a close. Despite paying very large sums, there are still many people that haven’t claimed and should do so as a matter of priority. This is relevant to people that bought policies between 1992 and the end of 2000 when Equitable closed. Call the helpline on 0300 0200 150 and checkout the supporting website. Also dont forget the EMAG site as well.

Space travel has significant risks

Looking at old Equitable adverts now is a reminder that assurances about the future were somewhat misplaced. Saying something with confidence does not make it true. Even this 1998 advert with Buzz Aldrin suggests that retirement activities might include a space trip by 2028… well who knows, but certainly the belief that you can get something for nothing is definitely thinking from a different planet and those policyholders that have not yet had compensation, probably feel that their pension shouldn’t really be rocket science, but something much more down to earth.

Dominic Thomas

Pensions: Are you an Equitable Life policyholder?2023-12-01T12:40:12+00:00
Go to Top