Sun Life Asset Management Co. Inc. (Slamci), the insurer’s mutual-fund arm, introduced on Wednesday a video series called Make It Mutual that share tips and the experience of clients who benefit from mutual funds.
The campaign helps set the topics that financial advisors will discuss in investment seminars in June that Sun Life has designated as its financial independence month.
Sun Life is promoting diversified investments via mutual funds that pool investor money into securities as stocks and bonds.
“In the Philippines Filipino millennials are quite afraid to invest in securities, but we are getting there through the help of celebrities and financial advisors. The first step is really finding solutions on how to better manage their finances through mutual funds” said Gerald Bautista, Slamci head of bank and alternative distribution channel.
The videos feature 27-year-old Sun Life ambassador Matteo Guidicelli, an actor and athlete, showing how to choose the type of mutual-fund investment for long-term and short-term goals, cope with rising prices and grow money through mutual funds.
“With these videos, we are trying to educate millennials to start managing their finances early. If you invest now, you can travel much longer five or 20 years from now. The longer you wait, the longer it will take for you to reach your goals,” Guidicelli said.
Based on the company’s survey, 80 percent of Filipino millennials consider investing important.
However, 87 percent of the respondents said they have not invested on anything. In the group, 45 percent said they are unaware of the nature of mutual funds.
Although more millennials have begun researching mutual funds in the Internet with communication technologies, they can further mitigate losses with Sun Life advisors can who help them design their investment portfolios and sustain profits.
At present Slamci owns assets worth P60 billion that its 131,000 investors have generated with their entrusted funds.
“We explain to our financial advisors and clients what’s happening in the market. We explain in commonsensical ways how our products are reacting to the market and how they are being effectively managed,” Bautista said.
“As with a car, you have to fine tune and look for things to calibrate. You have to be reflective and active, as well, in putting your sleeping money into alternative funds,” he added.
Sun Life executives said the video blogs can keep the more technologically oriented millennials engaged with the company, understand their financial problems and discuss solutions to the economic crisis.
“The fact that we are talking to them on social media makes us less intimidating and a friend to them because some are intimidated to enter offices of investment companies,” said Mylene Lopa, chief marketing officer of Sun Life Financial.
With the video blogs, Sun Life hopes the millennials can fulfill their shared dreams of buying a home and a car, raising a family and traveling early on.