Fleet Financial Group has embarked on the first full-blown advertising campaign touting its $6.3 billion Galaxy Funds.
The campaign, set to reach a mass audience through both print and television, is part of an effort to raise Fleet's investment services profile, said Gunnar S. Overstrom Jr., a vice chairman.
Fleet's investment services division has grown dramatically in recent months with the acquisitions of the broker-dealer Quick & Reilly of Palm Beach, Fla., and Columbia Asset Management, a Portland, Ore.-based company that manages about $7 billion of no-load fund assets.
Though services of the new Fleet units will be advertised in the future, Mr. Overstrom said that this campaign will focus on the Galaxy Funds, which he said have not been marketed aggressively in the past.
"This company has wonderful investment performance, but it's been undermarketed," he said.
Boston-based Fleet has "doubled" its advertising budget for the investment division for 1998, said Mr. Overstrom. He declined to disclose the budget, but a source said that Fleet is spending around $10 million this year on investment products and services alone.
The Galaxy campaign is being run by Arnold Communications, Fleet's Boston-based advertising agency, which handles the Volkswagen campaign, said Anne Finucane, director of corporate marketing for the bank.
The print campaign has been under way for roughly two weeks and is running in newspapers like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and magazines such as Smart Money and Time, Ms. Finucane said. The print campaign cites actual fund performance, she said.
The television campaign, which is running in the Northeast, is two- pronged, focusing on saving for education and retirement, she said. The education commercials are already running; the retirement ads are due to be rolled out in the next couple of weeks.
The TV commercials focusing on education depict a child in her high chair and display a dollar amount and the number of years required to provide her with an education. The script then says, "Now for a different number"-and gives a Fleet toll-free number.
Fleet has also retained the Boston-firm Heater Advertising to explore creating a campaign that would sell the Galaxy Funds to Fleet's private clients, Ms. Finucane said. Heater is responsible for the Scudder Kemper Investments commercials now running on television, she said.
Fleet is also exploring an ad campaign that would tout Quick & Reilly and Columbia Asset Management, Ms. Finucane said.
