Putnam Investments Launches 'Always Active' Campaign
The campaign is designed to build awareness of the firm's active management capabilities.
Putnam Investments, one of the oldest mutual funds in America, wants to remind advisors, brokers and investors about the benefits of active management.
The firm has launched an “Always Active” marketing campaign that focuses on the need for advisors and investors to be “always actively engaged” with the marketplace and on Putnam’s commitment to be “always active in its management, partnership and technology,” says Mark McKenna, head of global marketing at the firm. The campaign includes content, approved by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, that advisors can share with their clients.
The campaign showcases the firm’s active management capabilities to outperform market benchmarks and find opportunities in changing markets.
“This is a “sea change in our strategy, providing more real-time info to advisors,” said McKenna, who noted that the firm’s new headquarters at 100 Federal Street in Boston includes a TV studio with a newsroom-like set where the fund company can provide video content from its investment analysts and and portfolio managers.
The firm manages $170 billion in assets — $20 billion in defined contribution plans and the rest split between retail and institutional clients. Almost all assets are actively managed via mutual funds, although Putnam also manages collective investment trusts (CITs) for retirement plans. All retail assets are managed through financial advisors or brokers, and the firm has no ETFs.
The Putnam campaign is being launched at a time when actively managed funds are increasingly cited as having the potential to earn more or lose less than passive funds during extremely volatile markets. Multiple reports, however, show little evidence that actively managed funds can consistently outperform their benchmark indexes over time.
(Related: More Bad News About Active Funds’ Performance)
“By providing alpha generation, mitigating risk and dampening volatility, active management stands as a critically important component of a well-structured, diversified investment portfolio, said Robert L. Reynolds, President and CEO, Putnam Investments, in a statement. “This is a message that we aim to keep front and center with the marketplace.”
Almost one-third (22) of the 68 Putnam mutual funds listed on the Morningstar site carry four- or five-star ratings.
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