The Pig Has It

Go onto Google Images, type in ‘pension’ and then see what comes up. Actually, I can tell you what comes up. Ignoring news stories, in the first 100 or so images there were 10 pictures of cash in a jar, 19 ‘beautiful couples’, 12 eggs in and out of baskets, 4 moneyboxes, 6 road signs and a few deckchairs. And twenty-three piggybanks. That's right. Twenty-three pigs.

Is that the best we can do?! Is that a good summary of our ability to convey ‘pensions’ in pictures? You see, if you go behind the picture on Google, to the sites, they almost all lead to providers, consultants and clients pension funds.

Surely we can be more imaginative than a piggy bank? If a picture paints a thousand words, aren’t we falling a bit short with coins in a jar? So come on AHC, Likeminds, Shilling, Ferrier Pearce and all you other pension communication companies…..not to mention the internal departments in actuarial firms…. where are the new ideas? What can we convey that doesn’t include a piggy bank held in the hands of a beautiful couple in a deckchair under a road sign?!

Doing Things Differently

The headlines in today's Telegraph make sobering reading for those in the pension industry:

'I lost £150,000 due to Nineties pension sales frenzy.' 

This refers to the mis-selling scandal of course and tracks the story of one ex-soldier who was persuaded to transfer to a personal pension from the Armed Forces Plan. Disastrous results. And with many of those poor decisions reaping a poor pension, we will be seeing more of this in the press as people reach retirement.

'Pensions' doesn't have a great reputation anyway and these stories are not going to help. Warren Buffett said 'it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.' And we are doing things differently. But history and reputation are against us.

GOPM RIP, long live.... ?

Sad that AHC have pulled out of their networking, in particular Grumpy Old Pension Men. But they have to concentrate on client work. I wish them well.

What next? It think the concept of GOPM is a good one. A tongue in cheek look at pensions news with some serious comment as well. And all in 5 to 10 minutes. It's still on Youtube if you want to take a look. So, maybe Brian and I can reinvent GOPM? Let's see....

In the meantime, as I've left AHC, this site has changed too. Pensionweb has gone, Pension Quirks has arrived. Pensions can be fun! Yes, really.