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Observatorio Inverco and evercom report Do journalists care about asset management companies information?

FOUR OUT OF TEN JOURNALISTS FOLLOW THE INFORMATION OF ASSET MANAGERS AND FINANCIAL ENTITIES IN BLOGS AND SOCIAL NETWORKS

Approximately 7 out of 10 journalists specialised in financial information consider that media should assign more space to investment funds

The content that journalist most appreciate from asset managers is firstly market

comments, secondly product information and thirdly product and corporate strategy information.

In a 2.0 environment, journalists suggest asset managers: to be active and fast with current affair comments and to talk about their strategies based on the context.

Madrid, July 2011. At present, 4 out of 10 journalists specialised in financial information follow asset managers and financial entities in blogs and social networks, according to a survey developed by evercom and Observatorio Inverco to economy and financial press (national and local), radio, TV, and specialised webs. Nevertheless, the presence of asset managers is not so active according to the people consulted. In the first report “Do journalists care about asset management companies information?”, elaborated by the financial division of the communications consultancy evercom, financial journalists have been asked about what and which type of content they demand to asset managers. According to the study, 64% of journalists, more than 6 out of 10, consider that more space should be assign to investment funds information. Among the main reasons why funds actual prominence in media is little, a 36% of the people surveyed think that this information is particularly complex for their public and that is oriented to a very specific sector.

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Among the content that journalist most demand to asset managers, market comments remain in the first position, followed by the information related to products and corporate strategy. Concerning to the information in social networks and blogs, 36% of journalists state that they follow asset managers and financial entities trough these channels. However, 33% assures that Spanish and foreign asset managers are little active. A 22% of the people surveyed consider that foreign ones have more presence, though the majority of information is in English and is not adapted to the Spanish market. Just a 6% of Spanish asset managers use these tools to transmit their actions or market vision. Likewise, financial media journalists and specialised webs are the most active in the search of online information about asset managers, while general press journalists prefer the information regarding financial entities.

Investment funds online and offline challenge According to the results of the study elaborated by the financial division of the Communications consultancy evercom, the main challenges for asset managers is to simplify their corporate and product information in order to avoid being considered as complex and just recommended to specialised public. Therefore, they will be able to attract the attention of not specialised media. Asset managers will also have to be more didactic in their information and they need to adapt it to the different types of media and public. In line with this, it is important that they are agile and accessible and that they share those experts’ information that could be interesting for journalists. In a 2.0 environment, the asset managers’ challenges to reach financial journalists through their blogs and social networks are different. According to the suggestions of the people surveyed, asset managers need to be more active and fast when giving their market comments about current affairs. They also need to talk about the markets situation and the strategies that they are taking place. Moreover, daily updates should be focused on the Spanish situation, asset managers should answer more questions and individual managers’ presence should be enhanced in blogs. OBSERVATORIO INVERCO Observatorio Inverco is an initiative created by the Asociación de Instituciones de Inversión Colectiva with the aim of being an analysis and debate forum dedicated to the study of trends and the disclosure of the advantages of these conservative products. The objective of the Observatorio is to bring closer the collective investment industry and its products to the Spanish savers. Its principal mission is to contribute to a better investor understanding of the investment and pension funds industries in order to facilitate their decisions.

www.observatorioinverco.es

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EVERCOM Founded in 1996, evercom has offices in Madrid and in Barcelona and is a member of the IPRN, one of the leading international networks of independent public relations companies with 50 associate agencies worldwide. Currently it works for more than 40 organisations, both companies and institutions, from all the sectors. What is more, evercom has one of the highest loyalty ratios of the whole public relations consultants sector, according to the last PR Scope 2009 drawn up by Grupo Consultores.

www.evercom.es Contacts: Rubén Pereiro ruben.pereiro@evercom.es