The funds performed. Advisors weren't buying them.
A Canadian asset manager whose funds only got called on when a client asked. Rebuilding the story around the decision advisors are accountable for put the firm back in front of mind.
Client: NEI Investments
Sector: B2B financial services (asset management)
Stage: Established firm, advisor-driven distribution
Foundation addressed: Market Understanding, Message Coherence
Audience: Financial advisors recommending funds to their clients
The Situation
NEI Investments is a Canadian asset manager and one of the country's longest-standing champions of responsible investing. The firm built a full suite of actively managed funds and portfolios long before ESG became a category, with environmental, social and governance research built into how every fund was constructed. The products performed and the fees were competitive. Distribution ran through financial advisors, who decide which funds go into client portfolios.
I led this work from inside the business, accountable for the brand and for what the wholesaling team carried into advisor meetings.
The Challenge
NEI was known in the market as the ESG house. That reputation was earned and it was accurate, and over time it had become the only thing advisors knew about the firm. Advisors reached for NEI when a client specifically asked for responsible investing, and at no other time. The firm was competing for a narrow shelf defined by client values while the funds went unconsidered on their own merits.
Every piece of the brand spoke about environmental, social and governance outcomes. Advisors are measured on returns. So the marketing addressed something an advisor's client might care about while skipping the thing the advisor is accountable for, and NEI got filed as a specialty product rather than a core holding.
Wholesalers had no way to open on performance, because the firm's own materials had never made that argument. The strongest thing about the funds, that the ESG research surfaced risks and opportunities other managers missed, had never been connected to returns. Sales and marketing were working from different playbooks, so campaigns and field conversations pulled in different directions.
The Work
The foundation NEI needed was a story built on what their audience, financial advisors, cared about today.
The engagement started with listening. The brief for the advisor interviews asked how they were choosing products, what decision drivers mattered in their practice, and what was missing from NEI's current brand narrative. Their answers became an ideal client profile, grounded in real advisor behaviour and decision patterns.
Every piece of existing messaging went through an audit next. Brochures, website, wholesaler scripts, campaign assets. The diagnosis named where consistency broke down and where the firm's story stopped landing.
The reframe followed. Positioning the ESG work as the research discipline behind performance turned the attribute advisors had filed under client values into evidence of deeper diligence on the returns they are measured on. The narrative rolled out across the website, advisor decks, and campaign assets, so every touchpoint told the same story.
The final layer was team enablement. Wholesalers and marketing went onto a shared playbook and stayed on it, so the same conviction carried through the field and the collateral alike. The story stopped varying depending on who was in the room.
Foundation Addressed
Market Understanding and Message Coherence
The marketing was speaking to a client's values instead of the advisor's accountability. Rebuilding the narrative on how advisors select funds, then aligning every touchpoint and every wholesaler conversation to it, is what moved consideration and relevance.The Outcome
Why do advisors overlook a fund that performs?
Advisors overlook funds that perform when the manager's marketing speaks to something other than the decision the advisor is accountable for. An advisor is measured on returns and on the suitability of what goes into a client portfolio. When a firm's materials lead with an attribute the advisor's client might value, the fund gets filed as a specialty holding and surfaces only when a client raises that subject. The fix is to connect the differentiating attribute to performance, so the advisor has a reason to bring the fund forward unprompted.
The Outcome
Follow-up advisor surveys measured the shift. Brand consideration rose 36%. Perceived relevance rose 44%. Wholesalers reported more confident conversations and more meetings booked, with fewer cycles spent explaining what NEI was.
The firm moved out of the values category and into general consideration, so advisors had a reason to bring NEI forward for clients who had never asked about responsible investing.
“The research was the best thing about those funds, and the marketing had never once pointed it at the number an advisor gets judged on.”
Is your story traveling?
If your sales team is working hard and the message is not landing, or the firm carries a reputation that no longer matches the business, that is usually a foundation problem. Book a call and I will walk you through what rebuilding the narrative on real buyer research would look like for your firm.