GAITHERSBURG, MD: The National Association of Personal Financial Advisors [NAPFA] has chosen Perception as its AOR following a competitive RFP.
Perception will be the first AOR for NAPFA, a professional association that includes more than 1,000 fee-only financial planners.
Perception president and founder Benjamin Lewis said that the agency's main focus will be establishing the prominence of the NAPFA brand in consumers' minds.
"They are seen as really the national leader in a very crowded financial services industry," he said. "The problem is, the media gets it, people in the industry get it, but the consumer doesn't get it."
Lewis said the agency will work with the group to "ramp up an effort to help educate the consumer about what fee-only planning is all about."
Currently, NAPFA issues about 40,000 referrals per year to consumers looking for advisors, according to Lewis. He hopes to raise that number through a consumer-focused national media and public education campaign.
Among the tactics Perception plans to use are a new NAPFA media kit, new website, and new online pressroom.
Perception AE Christen Rice said that the competition for the account was narrowed to four agencies, which all traveled to Chicago for the final pitch. She would not reveal which other agencies were in the running. Lewis said that NAPFA hired an outside consultant to manage its search process.
