In her latest blog for IFA Magazine, Linda Johnstone, Novia Global’s Head of Investment Proposition, sheds some light on how advisers and advised platforms can help build investor confidence, with a throwback to the ‘Tell Sid’ campaign – likely to appeal to those readers (like this Editor of this esteemed magazine!) old enough to remember the 1980s.
How can the broader public be encouraged to grasp the likely benefits of investing? This challenge has confronted successive governments, and it seems reasonable to say precious few have met it especially well.
Rachel Reeves’ “industry-led” bid to raise awareness represents the latest endeavour. Stemming from the Chancellor’s July 2025 Mansion House speech, it was launched in collaboration with the Investment Association.
In keeping with nearly every such initiative that preceded it, it is a thoroughly well-intentioned affair. Unfortunately, also in keeping with nearly every such initiative that preceded it, it has run into difficulties almost before it has got off the ground in earnest[1].
We therefore need to go a little further back in order to find inspiration. In my opinion, the most successful attempt to stir mainstream interest in investing came nigh on 40 years ago – when, I ought to stress, I was very much in my youth!
As some readers may have guessed, I am referring to the celebrated “If you see Sid…” campaign. For those too young to recall it – or those sufficiently wizened to have forgotten it – maybe I should quickly summarise how it gripped the nation.
The privatisation of British Gas under the Thatcher government served as the spark. It gave rise to a series of ads in which various characters sought the mysterious Sid to tell him he could participate in the resultant £9 billion offering.
Infuriatingly, Sid was never revealed. The “hook” that held the audience’s attention for week after week ultimately brought no payoff.
Nonetheless, around 1.5 million people – many of them first-time investors –purchased shares at £1.35p a throw. Such is the power of skilful, genuinely effective advertising.
Perhaps this is why so many financial services providers have stepped up their own campaigns in recent years. You can hardly fail to have noticed, for example, that a number of platforms are actively seeking screentime, billboard space and column inches.
This brings us to a more specific challenge: encouraging the broader public to grasp the likely benefits of investing via advised platforms. In my view, our industry faces several hurdles in this respect.
The first is the enduring assumption that advised platforms are only for those who are already wealthy. This remains a major contributor to the advice gap, with many would-be clients believing our arena is beyond their reach or not aligned with their needs – or both.
The second barrier is that many individuals perceive platforms as disconcertingly complicated. Faced with repeated boasts about cutting-edge tech, state-of-the-art functionality and other purported selling points, they fear they will end up surrendering their funds to some sort of unfathomable black box.
The third problem, which is closely related to the second, is that investing is necessarily portrayed as risky. Even the most compelling modern-day ads come with dire warnings of potential losses and the scope for doom and gloom. This can act as a significant deterrent.
Finally, the uncomfortable truth is that many members of the public simply have no notion whatsoever of what advised platforms can actually do for them. We need to accept that the blame for this lack of knowledge lies principally with providers, whose messaging frequently neglects to highlight what really matters.
Given all the above, it strikes me that advised platforms’ efforts to encourage investing are most likely to have the desired impact if they focus on the basics. Very simply put: people want to know both what they are paying and, equally importantly, what they are paying for.
This means our services should be seen as affordable, flexible, transparent and useful. That is how we can best build wider appreciation of and confidence in what we do. It might sound spectacularly obvious, but I am convinced such attributes are not conveyed as routinely and unambiguously as they should be.
It may be worth noting that even the “If you tell Sid…” saga subtly laid bare the underlying issue here. In 2011, marking the 25th anniversary of the campaign, it was reported that around 30,000 investors had never claimed a penny of the dividends they were owed[2].
I wonder how many of those hapless souls would have fallen victim to such an oversight if they had been able to use an advised platform. Similarly, how many lives might be improved today if the prospective advantages of investing via advised platforms were made crystal-clear?
Linda Johnstone is Novia Global’s Head of Investment Proposition.
[1] See, for example, Politico: “Firms drop out of Rachel Reeves-backed UK investment campaign”, November 5 2025 – https://www.politico.eu/article/trading-firms-drop-out-of-reeves-retail-investment-campaign/.
[2] See, for example, Daily Mail: “30-second guide: Tell Sid”, December 9 2011 – https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2072001/30-SECOND-GUIDE-Tell-Sid.html.
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