Historically, one of the heaviest advertising periods for financial services companies is rrsp season – mid-January to the end of February.
In 1994, according to A.C. Nielsen, financial and insurance services companies spent more than $186 million on advertising with a healthy chunk devoted to registered retirement products.
Mid-month, Kitchener, Ont.-based Ross Dixon Financial Services is plunging into the fray with the launch of its first major advertising campaign from its new agency, Campbell & Partners of Toronto.
Over its 18 years of operation, the franchised distributor of financial and insurance products has spent its money on building the business and has limited its marketing efforts to the local level.
Dave Velanoff, president and chief executive officer of Ross Dixon, says the company is now prepared ‘to get serious about marketing, to tell the consumer our story, how we got started and what we’re all about.
‘This is the beginning of bigger things, not a means to an end, or annual campaign,’ Velanoff says. ‘We plan to have a message out there all the time.’
Advertising begins with a six-week-long rrsp television campaign covering the entire southern Ontario region with a selective buy in the Northern Ontario community of Timmins to make sure all markets with a Ross Dixon office are reached.
Velanoff says television was chosen as a launch vehicle specifically to take advantage of all the other rrsp television activity because Ross Dixon represents most of the heaviest advertisers.
He says as Trimark and Toronto-Dominion Bank generate demand for their products, Ross Dixon’s ad will tell consumers they can buy all of them with one-stop shopping at Ross Dixon Financial Services.
At the end of February, other media will be added to the mix, including outdoor, newspaper and radio.
The tactical message will change throughout the year, but the brand message, using the themeline ‘The Best Choice is Here,’ will stay the same.
Campbell & Partners will also be working with individual franchisees to develop local strategies.
Since its inception in 1978, Ross Dixon has grown from one office in Kitchener, Ont. specializing in gics (guaranteed income certificates) to 21 franchised offices in Ontario that offer financial and insurance products from more than 100 financial institutions.
A separate company, Ross Dixon Mortgage Services, was added three years ago.
In the past 3 1/2 years that Velanoff has been with the company, it has put more than $1.5 million into technology alone to link all franchisees to head office via computer.
This allows for the downloading of current product prices and information franchisees several times throughout the day.
Now that the systems are in place, Velanoff is not only spearheading the efforts to bring the Ross Dixon story to consumers, but also to potential franchisees with stepped-up business communications.
‘We have to learn to exploit the fact we’ve got a great situation for people,’ Velanoff says.
‘We don’t want to expand like crazy,’ he says. ‘We want to be able to live up to our commitment to franchisees.’
Ross Dixon’s current goal is to open about eight to 10 offices per year from this point on, but as many as 20 could be opened if outside firms are used to provide support services.
‘For the next little while, we’ll continue to focus on Ontario,’ Velanoff says.
‘We have quite a bit of interest in b.c. and Alberta and if we acquire four to five offices at one time, we’ll open up sooner out West than we intended to,’ he says. PS
