Recently, India’s National Pension Regulator had a tough situation. An advertisement about the National Pension System (NPS), a market-linked product, was labelled “safe”. Mutual fund managers questioned how the product could be called ‘safe’ when half of the investors’ funds were invested in a ‘risky’ portfolio of stocks. The ad was taken off in a flash, but not before the regulator was trolled on social media.

This situation could have been avoided, perhaps in many ways. One of these is in the role played by the respective stakeholders while creating the ad campaign in the first place – right from point of brief to appreciation of the brief to the creative process. There are several lessons for communications professionals from this instance.

• Don’t dive if you don’t know the depth of the pool– Like any other sector, financial communication requires fine understanding of the products, market participants, and synergies with other sectors. The stakes are higher for communications and advertising professionals due to various regulatory compliances associated with the communication collateral in this sector. Communications experts may not be the sectoral experts, but it is imperative to nail the devil hiding in the details.

• Go beyond the client brief- Clients may not always understand how much an agency needs to know. I have often played ‘investigative officer’ during client briefs. Believe me, it is more often than not, appreciated.

• As YOU say is not as THEY hear- For sure, financial products are complex in nature. So is the communication around these. Merely being factually correct may not land the right message to your target audience. In the example of the NPS advertisement, the word ‘safe’ had two different connotations, i.e., fixed returns and government backed. So, while the intent may not have been to mislead, the message was interpreted differently, and the rest as they say is history.

In sum, the rule of thumb is to imagine how a layman might interpret the content, numbers or jargon. In fact, this holds true for any communicator and for any industry. If your family and friends do not understand what you mean easily, please REDO. After all, the average reader is not an expert.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the personal opinion of the author. Text Hundred India Pvt Ltd assumes no responsibility or liability pertaining to this article.