The ad from Ant Fortune, a brand under Ant Financial, stressed the importance of early personal finance planning with a series of satirical posters during the period leading up to the country’s National Day on October 1.
Targeting the low-income group, the core message of “nobody feels pity for those who lead a substandard life in old age” was criticised on Chinese social media platforms.
Each of sixteen separate ads in the project had the name of one of Ant’s fund manager partners (see below).
AMAC publicly condemned the campaign and issued a Chinese-language news release. The association believes the ad’s message was insensitive and mocking to the investors and unbefitting of the financial management industry.
“Fund management is an industry that helps invest on behalf of their clients. The industry cannot stand alone without being trusted by and committed to investors, and it cannot walk away from fiduciary responsibility,” the statement said.
AMAC also pointed out the importance of maintaining a high level of professionalism and industry ethical standards. The activities of fund sales and promotion involve the general public, and therefore the firms’ concept of financial management should not stray from those guidelines under any circumstances, the association said.
On its Weibo site, Ant Fortune apologised for the inappropriate style of marketing. It has removed the campaign from its official sites.
The ad campaign was criticised for being insensitive
Fund manager partners named in the ad campaign, according to Weibo posts:
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AEGON-INDUSTRIAL Fund |
Bosera Funds |
|
CCB Principal Asset Management |
China Asset Management |
|
China Merchants Fund |
China Southern Asset Management |
|
CIFM Asset Management |
Everbright Pramerica |
|
Fullgoal Fund |
GF Fund Management |
|
Guotai Asset Management |
Harvest Fund |
|
Minsheng Royal Fund Management |
Tianhong Asset Management |
|
Wanjia Asset |
Zhong Ou Asset Management |
