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Financial
WINNER
AXA Avenue - The UK's First Financial Social Experiment
AXA
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
With personal debt totalling more than £1 trillion and bankruptcies rising by 30 per cent a year, the Government, media and financial services commentators have turned the issue of financial education into a hot topic.
In November 2005, AXA took the media by storm by announcing the launch of a year-long experiment, 'AXA Avenue - a financial social experiment' that was designed to give financial reporting a more credible and realistic bent, and push financial education higher up the national agenda.
The project would follow 20 households in Brighton (such as that of 'Shaun and Tricia Tester' and family, above) to uncover whether access to financial education and advice could help improve a person or family's financial wellbeing.
Households included a spread of groups that would benefit from financial advice. They comprised those approaching retirement, a gay couple seeking advice on civil partnerships, families without children and young couples wanting to get on the property ladder.
Ten households were given regular contact with Sarah Allott-Davey, managing partner of Heron House Financial Management and Female Independent Financial Adviser of the Year 2005. The rest were used as a control and received no financial advice.
AXA successfully provided regular, robust and media-friendly case studies that monitored the progress of the experiment. Channel 4 and the Daily Mirror were recruited as media partners, and each outlet 'adopted' their own families for exclusive update reports.
Since the campaign's launch, both outlets have revisited the households on a quarterly basis. A GP and stress expert, Dr Roger Henderson, has since been commissioned to write a report on the effects of money worries on health.
So far, the coverage has attracted support from counselling charity Relate and debt advice group CreditAction, as well as other independent parties and MPs.
At the time of entry, AXA Avenue-related stories have appeared in 224 articles and close to 100 broadcasts. The study is also due to be reinterpreted to build up a national picture of financial stress and financial education needs.
AXA was commended by judges for it serious and long-term commitment to investigating the impact that a lack of financial education has on individuals and families.
It is now positioned as a leading exponent of financial education with 216 media mentions over the campaign period in relation to financial education, literacy or advice, 186 of which were broadly positive. No negative coverage has been observed.
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