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Practice Management > Marketing and Communications

CFP Board’s ‘Perfect Job’ Promos Fall Flat With Planners

By John Manganaro

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What You Need to Know

  • A new CFP Board ad campaign aimed at students compares being a planner with mock careers like burrito scarfer and professional daydreamer.
  • Some students and planning pros say the campaign trivializes the profession.
  • The campaign was intended to be provocative and has succeeded in catching students' attention, the board's chairman says.

A student-focused advertising campaign launched recently by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards has sparked an animated debate — with planning experts like Jamie Hopkins and Michael Kitces weighing in — about the best ways to inform the public about the profession, with many planners taking issue with the ads’ lighthearted portrayals of CFPs.

The series of videos and still-image ads portrays financial planning as the “next-best job” compared with comically idealized mock careers such as “bubble bath sommelier,” “lead burrito scarfer” and “professional daydreamer.” Some found humor in the approach, but the campaign has missed the mark for many.

“These are bad,” wrote Hopkins, chief wealth officer of WSFS Bank, on LinkedIn. “Not funny nor a good representation of our profession. This is a lack of understanding or vision of the industry and how we impact lives.”

Reaching Young People

CFP Board Chair Matthew Boersen said he was not surprised to see a strong reaction to the “Quite Possibly the Perfect Job” campaign.

“When I initially watched the ads for this campaign, my gut reaction was that they were edgy and different,” Boersen said. “I wasn’t sure about them. However, I had to remind myself that I am a 36-year-old financial planner and not the intended audience for this campaign. I also had to remind myself that these ads are not for my clients or prospects who are seeking financial advice or financial planning support.”

Instead, the ads are intended to encourage high school and college students to explore a career as a CFP professional.

“Our research told us that we needed a provocative message to break through with this group, and I realized this campaign did exactly that, so I gave it my full support,” Boersen said. “We’re starting to see the success of the campaign. Hundreds of students are engaging with the ads and seeking more information on careers in financial planning. We are finally moving the needle on this immensely important issue.”

Boersen emphasized that he and the CFP Board genuinely appreciate the feedback from CFP professionals, adding that the organization will “continue to work with the targeted student audience to enhance the campaign to make sure it’s as effective as possible.”

The Precarious Image of Financial Planners

Some CFP professionals have taken particular umbrage with a series of still promotional photos derived from the longer-form video ads, which have been interpreted as portraying CFP professionals (accidentally or otherwise) as lazy, lackadaisical or worse.

She shared a screenshot from the campaign.

CFP Ad screenshot Screenshot via LinkedIn

“Maybe some people think it’s funny, but most of the actual CFPs I talked to feel embarrassed that this is the image we are trying to ‘portray’ about our profession to whom, the world? Future CFPs?” wrote Inga Timmerman, a CFP and assistant professor of finance at the University of North Florida. “Who is this commercial for?”

“The ads appear to imply that becoming a financial planner is all about… well, scarfing burritos, taking bubble baths, and a lot of tablet surfing and (hammock and couch) sleeping,” wrote Kitces, the founder of Kitces.com. “Rather than, you know… actually serving clients so they can achieve their goals as a helping profession.”

As Kitces and others pointed out, a more generous interpretation of the campaign is also possible, as was offered up by Derek Tharp, a CFP and associate professor of finance at the University of Southern Maine.

“Having now reviewed their full ad library in Meta and reading about the background of the campaign, I think the issue here is really just the lack of context for the still image versions of these ads,” Tharp wrote.

Ultimately, Tharp argued, the video format works much better — “and that’s likely what most college aged kids will see anyways.”

Not So Easy

Additional criticisms focus on the fact that there is nothing easy about earning the CFP designation. It’s an academically demanding process that requires significant investment of both time and money.

“Working full time and going to school full time at night doesn’t leave a ton of room for work-life balance,” one CFP wrote in response to Timmerman’s post. “Taking care of hundreds of people doesn’t exactly leave a lot of room for self care. … And they make no mention of how these young professionals are going to go about finding and converting clients.”

A number of college students joined the discussion, including one who wrote that she appreciated the sentiment behind the campaign.

“As a financial planning student, I appreciate the focus on work-life balance, especially in a time where mental health awareness is key,” wrote Sydney Bridges, who is studying finance and financial planning at the University of North Florida. “The ability to balance career and family is part of what drew me to the profession, but my primary motivation is to build impactful relationships and serve families.”

Bridges said the campaign, however, doesn’t highlight this passion for helping others.

“While likely well intended, the ads make being a CFP seem overly simple, which diminishes the profession’s value,” she argued. “The portrayal of Gen Z also feels off; those who care about helping others and work hard will become the best future CFPs, but the campaign doesn’t speak to that enough, in my opinion.”

A Better Approach?

Hopkins told ThinkAdvisor in a separate email that he welcomes the idea of being “creative and edgy” to grow the profession.

“But we also have to protect and support the profession,” he said. “The static ads are the problem here. The video ads have more nuance and get the point across better, although I still think they represent a miss on how anyone sees themselves.”

The profession already has challenges in public perception as overpaid and untrustworthy, with related challenges as to “how we add value or what we do,” Hopkins said.

“To imply this is an easy and overpaid job is a disservice to the people creating real value and impact every day with their clients,” he said. “The ads, to me, were focused on a bad stereotype of the current young generation as lazy, also, pushing a dangerous narrative.

“These ads are about individuals, jobs, money and laziness — the opposite of what we stand for,” Hopkins added. “While likely coming from a good-natured attempt, these missed and they missed badly. I think the focus should be on the value of an advisor, how we help and serve clients. This impact should be the focus, not the individual and their job.”

John Manganaro

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