What would everyone think about a Trading 212 TV advert for the release of pies and autoinvest?
I think it would be good to try show the general public how easy it is to invest these days, as Iām sure a lot of people still think you need a lot of money and knowledge and that you still have to do it through an expensive stock broker.
The new pie and autoinvest update could be used to show how easy it is to pick all the popular companies (Tesla, Netflix, Apple etcā¦) and let it do all for you, as the vast majority probably donāt want to actively invest. And by using small amounts of money as the example, Iām sure a lot of people would be interested in giving it a go if they could see you donāt have to put Ā£,000s in.
I know when Iāve tried to encourage my friends a lot of their worries were having to put hundreds of pounds in a once and not knowing what to do. Iām sure showing a pie investing Ā£10/20 a week into a couple of well recognised brands would encourage those that were scared to give it a go to download the app!
I would be concerned at negative feedback and comment in some media. There is a segment of the populace that view stock market investors as evil. Maybe thatās OK if it gets attention. But I think targeted social media advertising is better. And word of mouth. A while ago Trading 212 did a campaign of billboards at train stations. I thought that looked to be a good idea. There is however plenty of tv advertising of sports betting web sites.
Did look good tbh. I donāt know about the targeted ads though, I feel itās need to be more broad. I only seem to get them on investing channels, but the new update is trying to make investing accessible for everyone? So whatās the point in targeting those who already invest? Maybe billboards are good, bus stop signs and stuff too could be handy!
I agree that some kind of advertising campaign would be very useful, particularly focusing āAuto-Investā/pies on certain target groups. eg. Maybe a target audience of people under the age of 40, as it can also āhelpā young people with saving regular amounts of money.
I feel like a TV advert would be too expensive, it is probably best to focus it on more specific streams that target the target audience. For example, if T212 decide to incorporate SIPPs (Vanguard for example will launch theirās this year) then it may be better to target a slightly later age group 35-60 who may be considering retirement in their long term decisions.
Also, I think that now is a bad moment to invest in advertisements, even on a suitable medium. It is probably best to finish with the Beta version, incorporate the additional stock requests and once everything is on the platform and we have an āissuedā (non-beta) version of the Pies (Auto-Invest) they can fully launch an advertising campaign. Moreover, a few weeks ago it seemed like the team was too busy with new people signing up, it would probably be best to wait until it quietens down (due to less sign ups or their capacity/team growing - they mentioned that they were recruiting) a bit before investing significant amount in advertising/marketing.
This is good to know.
I get the impression that when people see an advert saying ā0% Commissionā they think itās not true and that the platform will charge you for other compulsory thingsā¦ which is not the case (at least not currently). I personally got to know about this platform when I started thinking about getting back into investing in stocks and did some research online and reading comparative blogs/articles/forums.
Actually, a few comments on review platforms nearly put me off trying T212. I believe it was trustpilot.com. Maybe existing users should try to put accurate reviews on platforms like this to offset the odd bad experience. Their reviews might currently be over-represented on platforms like this: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/trading212.com
I have not found the posts I read, but they were quite bad (things like money frozen, losing money, no one answering the phone, no email replies for over a month, etc), which as I say nearly got me choosing a different platform (FreeTrade).
For clarity, in the end I also ended up trying FreeTrade, just to see for myself what it was like. I wish them all the best, as it is good for customers to have several options, but currently T212 is much better.
For me, YouTube etcās the way to go. Costs far less and allows you to target people more. To be fair, Trading 212ās already doing a far better job than Feetrade on this front.
One thing I think T212 could perhaps do better is try to address some of the misconceptions about the service. You hear all manner of inaccurate, malicious and defamatory statements about T212. I know trust put me off switching for a long time.
In the case of Feetrade, theyād be right! Theyāre a ācommission-freeā broker that pockets a relatively well hidden 0.45% foreign exchange commission on international stocks. I would not be at all surprised if some of the following unqualified marketing statements on their website/app store breached Advertising Standards Authority or FCA rules:
No commissions, ever
Invest for free, forever. Commission-free instant orders. US and UK stocks.
Invest in over 850 US and UK-listed stocks and ETFs. All commission-free.
Given the definition of ācommissionā: ie a sum, typically a set percentage of the value involved, paid to an agent in a commercial transaction: some of those statements are at best misleading and at worst false. To my mind, theyāre hoodwinking customers.
I havenāt watched TV in years nor seen advertisements on TV or YouTube or websites (thanks ublock origin). When I am out and about I tend to ignore any advertisements too, because they are advertisements.
A lot of younger folk (not that iām young any more) need to be targeted via social media platforms or word of mouth imo.
LinusTechTips does smart advertising in their videos - insert a quick clip that is presented by the channel staff themselves and has fast bullet-point style info and then move on. At the end of the video I think they usually have a slightly more in-depth clip regarding the advertisement.
I think a lot of people are aware of T212 having no fees, but maybe they need to know
Why is it fee free? When people are told fee free, they know costs are being recovered elsewhere
Why should I invest in stocks?
How can T212 compare to savings accounts/premium bonds/junior isa, etc
The Stock market has a huge stigma of being a place you can lose your money.
My own family believes the stock market is nothing short of gambling as they do not understand it and only hear the bad things (recessions for example) yet they happily invest their kids money into a junior isa as it looks like a normal saver account all wrapped up with a bow and everything.
As it stands I think a lot of people are intimidated as they simply do not know how to invest or why and are scared of losing money.
Maybe education is key here: ETFs, long term investing, growth, risk, diversification, etc.
So to sum upā¦Those advertisements saying the platform is free is great and all, but why should people invest in general? Throw up some fancy graphs comparing stock market growth vs savings accounts, premium bonds, junior isa schemes etc.
I was recommending TV ads as theyāre seen as more trustworthy than YouTube ads. Sure YouTube is cheaper, but I feel trading 212 needs to raise brand image and recognition, and try to get away any of this āscamā stigma
Maybe iām of the opposite boat, but I was actually put off from joining T212 for ages because I thought it was dare i say it - a scam, after seeing all the adverts. So happy to be proven wrong.
The real reason I joined was that they were lightyears ahead of everyone in terms of 0% commissions.
But what really sealed the deal, and still does - is that they handled my requests to join brilliantly. I canāt fault the ISA team, absolutely did a smashing job resolving an issue I had with the bank.
Now looking back in hindsight, I think if they spent most of their time on the content on youtube, like they have done in the past, this is the best way to āsellā their service to attract new clients.
I think it would be a great service if they offered weekly insights like capital.com do on youtube. Still sad that David Jones isnāt with T212 anymore, he has a great charisma.
Sorry, this is almost impossible when you are advertising a āfreeā product where the main benefit is being free, and you expect that people will give you all their live savings just because, itās free
you can ask any account manager on a publicity company.
Look at N26, Revolutā¦ even being banks and having a lot of advertisements, they still suffer with āscamā accusations and very bad online reviews everywhere.
I really like that content.
That being saidā¦ itās for nerdsā¦ average people just run away of that content, and letās be honest, if you are not day trader, you can have a very good portfolio without ever read about those charts.
I wonder who actually uses those adverts as source of truth or recommendation, so far majority of mobile app commercials had fake info/graphics used.
For clothing/accessories most brands had awful reviews.
Personally I avoid advertised brands ā¦
But I notice if I google / read articles about commission free brokers eu/uk, it is hard to get t212 mentioned.
So that is definitely worth to invest inā¦
I completely agree. It was never attractive to me. The content trading 212 needs is videos like that of money box etc. They need to make the invest and ISA platforms look as friendly as possible. And the YouTube channel isnāt showing that. Going forward they may want to rename the trading 212 channel to CFD, to make it clear that average people donāt have to learn that stuff
Again, thatās why I like the TV ads. I never look at a TV ad and question to company. I think it must be trustworthy. Ads on YouTube, Facebook etc. I know can advertise anything, if I saw an advert Iād look for any alternatives first. Interestingly enough what brought me to Trading 212 was a plus 500 advert on YouTube
(at least not currently). I personally got to know about this platform when I started thinking about getting back into investing in stocks and did some research online and reading comparative blogs/articles/forums.
