Huntington Bancshares will kick off an advertising campaign Monday touting a new retirement savings program.
The campaign will promote Personal Financial Analysis, a financial planning program that also has its debut Monday, said Paula G. Jurcenko, vice president and senior product manager with Huntington's investment group.
Personal Financial Analysis lets investors sit down with a Huntington investment professional and plan their retirement or other financial objective such as a child's college education, Ms. Jurcenko said. There are 60 Series 7 investment representatives at the bank, who deal specifically with financial planning and several Series 6, or platform brokers, in the branches.
The Columbus, Ohio, bank launched what it calls the Retirement Bank four years ago in an attempt to carve a niche for itself in that market, Ms. Jurcenko said. Though Huntington already offers a range of investment products to savers, the new service will corral all those products into a customer-specific financial planning model, she said.
The bank has marketed its retirement savings capabilities in the past and drummed up business in unique ways. For example, last year Huntington mined the commercial bank for prospects and hosted seminars on retirement planning at roughly 100 corporations, Ms. Jurcenko said.
However, 1999 promises to be the biggest push to increase the retirement business, with roughly $1.5 million earmarked for the effort.
Ads for the eight-week campaign will run in the local press and on local radio in Huntington's six-state territory - Ohio, West Virginia, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, and Indiana.
The tag line is: "Most financial pages report the Dow Jones. Ours reports the Fred Jones." It refers to the overload of financial information that investors must wade through on a daily basis, Ms. Jurcenko said. Fred Jones is depicted in the ads as a 40-something married man with two children.
The marketing push also includes a direct mail effort, which will initially target 100,000 Huntington retail bank customers. The bank will also use statement stuffers, postcards, and branch merchandising.
"We can provide the same service that a Prudential can," Ms. Jurcenko said. "We can manage the entire financial relationship."
